Six research developments about patients with HCC

World Cancer Day is today, February 4. Healio.com/Hepatology compiled a list of the latest studies focusing on hepatocellular carcinoma research and advancements.

New model accurately predicted HCC recurrence after transplantation

A novel clinicopathologic prognostic nomogram developed by researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, accurately predicted liver transplant recipients’ chance of hepatocellular carcinoma recurrence post-transplant.

Vatche G. Agopian

“This novel nomogram includes three important groups of information that proved to be very accurate in predicting recurrence in liver cancer patients, better than any other system out there,” researcher Vatche G. Agopian, MD, assistant professor of surgery, division of liver transplantation at UCLA, said. “Physicians can use our nomogram and have a meaningful discussion with transplant recipients regarding their post-transplant risk of cancer recurrence.” Read more

Potential HCC drug stabilized disease progression

Mipsagargin was effective in stabilizing hepatocellular carcinoma progression and was well tolerated among a cohort of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma, according to results of a phase 2 clinical trial presented at the Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.

“Mipsagargin is a first-in-class agent with novel mechanism of action that is unlike any other drug being tested in patients with advanced liver cancer,” Craig Dionne, PhD, CEO of GenSpera, said. “Based on the results of this study, we intend to move forward with a large, global phase 3 trial.” Read more

Increased coffee intake reduced risk for HCC, death from chronic liver disease in multiple ethnicities

High levels of coffee consumption were found to be associated with a decreased risk for incident hepatocellular carcinoma and chronic liver disease mortality in multiethnic US populations.

“This large prospective cohort study showed that coffee consumption reduces the risk of developing HCC and mortality from [chronic liver disease] in African Americans, Japanese Americans, Native Hawaiians, Latinos, and whites,” the researchers wrote. Read more

High AKR1B10 protein expression showed promising survival rates for HCC

Among a cohort of Korean patients with hepatocellular carcinoma, high aldo-keto reductase 1B10 protein expression predicted longer recurrence-free and disease-specific survival rates vs. patients with low protein expression.

“This study demonstrated that AKR1B10 protein expression in HCC tissues might be a clinically useful predictive marker for good prognosis of HCC after curative hepatectomy in a large number of HCC patients with long-term follow-up,” the researchers wrote. Read more

Global life expectancy increasing; HCV-related liver cancer deaths up 125%

Data from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2013 suggest that global life expectancy has increased by 5.8 years among men and 6.6 years among women from 1990 to 2013.

“This study shows that some major chronic diseases have been largely neglected but are rising in importance, particularly drug disorders, liver cirrhosis, diabetes and chronic kidney disease,” Christopher Murray, MD, professor of global health at the University of Washington, said in a press release. Read more

Longer transplant wait times yielded higher survival rates for patients with HCC

Liver transplant recipients in the long waiting time region who underwent transplantation due to hepatocellular carcinoma had a greater survival rate after transplant compared with patients on the short waiting time region list, according to study data.

“This study provides population-based evidence that expediting patients with HCC to transplant at too fast a rate adversely affects outcomes, with a more than 8% difference in post-transplant survival existing between short and long access time regions,” the researchers wrote. “Because overall waiting time is an independent predictor of poor outcome, we would suggest that further iterations in allocation policy toward HCC be considered.” Read more