Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
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
Core Tip

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.