18 May Liver Cancer: UT Southwestern Researchers Identify Blood Marker for Elevated Risk

MedicalResearch.com Interview with:

Dr. Hoshida

Yujin Hoshida, MD, PhD
Director, Liver Tumor Translational Research Program
CPRIT Scholar in Cancer Research
Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center
Professor of Internal Medicine
Division of Digestive and Liver Diseases, Department of Internal Medicine
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center

MedicalResearch.com:  What is the background for this study? 

Response: Liver cancer is the fastest rising cause of cancer-related death in the U.S. with the sharply growing epidemic of obesity and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Late diagnosis at advanced stage is the main reason for the poor survival of liver cancer patients. Therefore, professional societies recommend semi-annual liver cancer screening for early diagnosis. However, it’s practically infeasible due to the vast size of patient population (estimated to affect one-fourth of population).

Thus, we urgently need tools to identify a small subset of patients with elevated liver cancer risk, on which we can concentrate our effort of screening.

MedicalResearch.com:  What are the main findings?

Response: In our prior study, we identified a serum-protein-based signature (PLSec) that predicts future liver cancer risk over 15 years in chronic liver disease patients. As a next step to make the assay clinically available, here we could successfully validate PLSec in a nation-wide multi-center prospective cohort of > 1,300 liver disease patients developed by the Early Detection Research Network (EDRN) Hepatocellular carcinoma Early Detection Strategy (HEDS) consortium funded by National Cancer Institute (NCI), NIH.

MedicalResearch.com: What should readers take away from your report?

Response: The signature allows non-invasive and accurate estimation of long-term liver cancer risk, and guides tailored management of the patients (e.g., screen or not) according to individual risk.

MedicalResearch.com: What recommendations do you have for future research as a result of this work?

Response: We are expecting to make the test available to broader clinical community inter/nationally for further evaluation in various patient populations.

No disclosures 

Citation:

2022 DDW abstract:

PROGNOSTIC LIVER SECRETOME SIGNATURE AND ALPHA-FETOPROTEIN (PLSEC-AFP) PREDICTS LONG-TERM HEPATOCELLULAR CARCINOMA RISK IN PATIENTS WITH CIRRHOSIS: A NATIONWIDE PHASE 3 BIOMARKER STUDY IN THE U.S.

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Last Updated on May 18, 2022 by Marie Benz MD FAAD