Kim JU, Shariff MIF, Crossey MME, Gomez-Romero M, Holmes E, Cox IJ, Fye HKS, Njie R, Taylor-Robinson SD. Hepatocellular carcinoma: Review of disease and tumor biomarkers. World J Hepatol 2016; 8(10): 471-484 [PMID: 27057305 DOI: 10.4254/wjh.v8.i10.471]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Jin Un Kim, BSc, Division of Digestive Health, Department of Surgery and Cancer, Imperial College London, St Mary’s Campus, South Wharf Road, London W2 1NY, United Kingdom. juk11@ic.ac.uk
Research Domain of This Article
Gastroenterology & Hepatology
Article-Type of This Article
Review
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Hepatol. Apr 8, 2016; 8(10): 471-484 Published online Apr 8, 2016. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v8.i10.471
Hepatocellular carcinoma: Review of disease and tumor biomarkers
Jin Un Kim, Mohamed I F Shariff, Mary M E Crossey, Maria Gomez-Romero, Elaine Holmes, I Jane Cox, Haddy K S Fye, Ramou Njie, Simon D Taylor-Robinson
Jin Un Kim, Mohamed I F Shariff, Mary M E Crossey, Maria Gomez-Romero, Simon D Taylor-Robinson, Division of Digestive Health, Department of Surgery and Cancer, Imperial College London, London W2 1NY, United Kingdom
Elaine Holmes, Division of Computational Medicine, Department of Surgery and Cancer, Imperial College London, London W2 1NY, United Kingdom
I Jane Cox, the Foundation for Liver Research, Institute of Hepatology, London WC1E 6HX, United Kingdom
Haddy K S Fye, Ramou Njie, MRC Gambia, Fajara 273, The Gambia
Author contributions: The subject matter for the review was conceived and overseen by Holmes E, Cox IJ and Taylor-Robinson SD; Crossey MME, Fye HKS, Njie R and Holmes E were responsible for work on the essential biomarker development techniques reported in this review; the paper was written primarily by Kim JU, Shariff MIF and Taylor-Robinson SD; all authors contributed to the writing of the manuscript and approved the final version.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Authors declare no conflict of interests for this review.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Jin Un Kim, BSc, Division of Digestive Health, Department of Surgery and Cancer, Imperial College London, St Mary’s Campus, South Wharf Road, London W2 1NY, United Kingdom. juk11@ic.ac.uk
Telephone: +44-207-8866454 Fax: +44-207-7249369
Received: January 22, 2016 Peer-review started: January 23, 2016 First decision: February 22, 2016 Revised: March 2, 2016 Accepted: March 14, 2016 Article in press: March 16, 2016 Published online: April 8, 2016 Processing time: 68 Days and 7.9 Hours
Abstract
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a common malignancy and now the second commonest global cause of cancer death. HCC tumorigenesis is relatively silent and patients experience late symptomatic presentation. As the option for curative treatments is limited to early stage cancers, diagnosis in non-symptomatic individuals is crucial. International guidelines advise regular surveillance of high-risk populations but the current tools lack sufficient sensitivity for early stage tumors on the background of a cirrhotic nodular liver. A number of novel biomarkers have now been suggested in the literature, which may reinforce the current surveillance methods. In addition, recent metabonomic and proteomic discoveries have established specific metabolite expressions in HCC, according to Warburg’s phenomenon of altered energy metabolism. With clinical validation, a simple and non-invasive test from the serum or urine may be performed to diagnose HCC, particularly benefiting low resource regions where the burden of HCC is highest.
Core tip: Many independent authors have utilized quantitative techniques, such as 1H nuclear magnetic resonance and mass spectrometry to discover novel biomarkers to aid early diagnosis, following the removal of alpha fetoprotein from international surveillance guidelines. However, relatively little effort has been directed to translate these findings to the clinical setting. hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a global issue and the vast majority of the burden is placed upon resource-limited regions, where presentations are late and management techniques for advanced tumors are unavailable. Early identification through a simple serum or urinary investigation, therefore, may be a pivotal step in addressing the global burden of HCC.
