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Review
. 2020 May 20;9(5):1541.
doi: 10.3390/jcm9051541.

Liquid Biopsies in Hepatocellular Carcinoma: Are We Winning?

Tudor Mocan  1 , André L Simão  2 , Rui E Castro  2 , Cecília M P Rodrigues  2 , Artur Słomka  3 , Bingduo Wang  4 , Christian Strassburg  4 , Aliona Wöhler  5 , Arnulf G Willms  5 , Miroslaw Kornek  4
Affiliations
Review

Liquid Biopsies in Hepatocellular Carcinoma: Are We Winning?

Tudor Mocan et al. J Clin Med. .

Abstract

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) represents the sixth most common cancer worldwide and the third most common cause of cancer-related death. One of the major problems faced by researchers and clinicians in this area is the lack of reliable disease biomarkers, which would allow for an earlier diagnosis, follow-up or prediction of treatment response, among others. In this regard, the "HCC circulome", defined as the pool of circulating molecules in the bloodstream derived from the primary tumor, represents an appealing target, the so called liquid biopsy. Such molecules encompass circulating tumor proteins, circulating tumor cells (CTCs), extracellular vesicles (EVs), tumor-educated platelets (TEPs), and circulating tumor nucleic acids, namely circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) and circulating tumor RNA (ctRNA). In this article, we summarize recent findings highlighting the promising role of liquid biopsies as novel potential biomarkers in HCC, emphasizing on its clinical performance.

Keywords: biomarker; circulating tumor cells; circulating tumor nucleic acids; extracellular vesicles; proteomics and metabolomics.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Liquid biopsy in HCC. Various forms of liquid biopsy, aiming at different tumor tracers, have been investigated in HCC. Some are still not commercially available or approved for HCC, or are still under experimental research, including cell-free DNA and cell-free RNA (cfDNA and cfRNA, respectively), circulating tumor cells (CTCs), extracellular vesicles (EVs), and metabolomics.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Role of circulating nucleic acids as biomarkers in HCC. Different types of circulating nucleic acids have already been described as potential biomarkers for the diagnosis and staging of HCC, as well as predictors of progression, recurrence and metastasis, among others, like treatment response. These circulating nucleic acids include lncRNAs; miRNAs used alone or in combinatory panels with other miRNAs or other molecules; as well as the detection of the quantity, hyper/hypomethylation status and different mutations in cfDNA.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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