Role of liver biopsy in hepatocellular carcinoma

Table 1 Advantages and disadvantages of liquid biopsy

	Liquid biopsy	Liver biopsy
Cons	Lack of large-scale validation studies	Risk of seeding
	Expensive (will most likely improve in the near future)	Potential complications
Pros	Minimally invasive	Avoid risk of misdiagnosis
	Easy to repeat during follow-up.	Assesment of microscopic vascular invasion
	Provides detailed, dynamic information about tumor biology (overcome tumor heterogeneity in multifocal and advanced HCC)
		Low cost
		Reproducibility
		Possibility of review over time
Future prospectives	Improved diagnosis of lesions below than 1-2 cm in diameter	Prognostic stratification and detection of the therapeutic target (systemic therapy)
	Correlation with clinical outcomes
	Prediction of response to treatment