Liquid Biopsy in Hepatocellular Carcinoma: Opportunities and Challenges for Immunotherapy
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the deadliest cancer types worldwide. HCC is often diagnosed at a late stage when the therapeutic options are very limited. However, even at the earlier stages, the best treatment is liver transplantation, surgical resection or ablation. Surgical resection an...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2021-08-01
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| Series: | Cancers |
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6694/13/17/4334 |
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| author | Panagiota Maravelia Daniela Nascimento Silva Giulia Rovesti Michael Chrobok Per Stål Yong-Chen Lu Anna Pasetto |
| author_facet | Panagiota Maravelia Daniela Nascimento Silva Giulia Rovesti Michael Chrobok Per Stål Yong-Chen Lu Anna Pasetto |
| author_sort | Panagiota Maravelia |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the deadliest cancer types worldwide. HCC is often diagnosed at a late stage when the therapeutic options are very limited. However, even at the earlier stages, the best treatment is liver transplantation, surgical resection or ablation. Surgical resection and ablation may carry a high risk of tumor recurrence. The recent introduction of immunotherapies resulted in clinical responses for a subgroup of patients, but there were still no effective predictive markers for response to immunotherapy or for recurrence after surgical therapy. The identification of biomarkers that could correlate and predict response or recurrence would require close monitoring of the patients throughout and after the completion of treatment. However, this would not be performed efficiently by repeated and invasive tissue biopsies. A better approach would be to use liquid biopsies including circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA), circulating RNA (e.g., microRNAs), circulating tumor cells (CTC) and extracellular vesicles (EVs) (e.g., exosomes) for disease monitoring in a non-invasive manner. In this review, we discuss the currently available technology that can enable the use of liquid biopsy as a diagnostic and prognostic tool. Moreover, we discuss the opportunities and challenges of the clinical application of liquid biopsy for immunotherapy of HCC. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-10T08:14:39Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-7ce9ee365e0a4ba2abc4ccc2b6de2413 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2072-6694 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-10T08:14:39Z |
| publishDate | 2021-08-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Cancers |
| spelling | doaj.art-7ce9ee365e0a4ba2abc4ccc2b6de24132023-11-22T10:25:49ZengMDPI AGCancers2072-66942021-08-011317433410.3390/cancers13174334Liquid Biopsy in Hepatocellular Carcinoma: Opportunities and Challenges for ImmunotherapyPanagiota Maravelia0Daniela Nascimento Silva1Giulia Rovesti2Michael Chrobok3Per Stål4Yong-Chen Lu5Anna Pasetto6Department of Laboratory Medicine Karolinska Institutet, 14152 Stockholm, SwedenDepartment of Laboratory Medicine Karolinska Institutet, 14152 Stockholm, SwedenDepartment of Laboratory Medicine Karolinska Institutet, 14152 Stockholm, SwedenDepartment of Laboratory Medicine Karolinska Institutet, 14152 Stockholm, SwedenUnit of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Department of Medicine/Huddinge, Karolinska Institutet, Department of Upper GI Diseases, Karolinska University Hospital, 14186 Stockholm, SwedenDepartment of Pathology, Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR 72205, USADepartment of Laboratory Medicine Karolinska Institutet, 14152 Stockholm, SwedenHepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the deadliest cancer types worldwide. HCC is often diagnosed at a late stage when the therapeutic options are very limited. However, even at the earlier stages, the best treatment is liver transplantation, surgical resection or ablation. Surgical resection and ablation may carry a high risk of tumor recurrence. The recent introduction of immunotherapies resulted in clinical responses for a subgroup of patients, but there were still no effective predictive markers for response to immunotherapy or for recurrence after surgical therapy. The identification of biomarkers that could correlate and predict response or recurrence would require close monitoring of the patients throughout and after the completion of treatment. However, this would not be performed efficiently by repeated and invasive tissue biopsies. A better approach would be to use liquid biopsies including circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA), circulating RNA (e.g., microRNAs), circulating tumor cells (CTC) and extracellular vesicles (EVs) (e.g., exosomes) for disease monitoring in a non-invasive manner. In this review, we discuss the currently available technology that can enable the use of liquid biopsy as a diagnostic and prognostic tool. Moreover, we discuss the opportunities and challenges of the clinical application of liquid biopsy for immunotherapy of HCC.https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6694/13/17/4334hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC)immunotherapiesliquid biopsycirculating tumor DNA (ctDNA)circulating tumor cells (CTC) |
| spellingShingle | Panagiota Maravelia Daniela Nascimento Silva Giulia Rovesti Michael Chrobok Per Stål Yong-Chen Lu Anna Pasetto Liquid Biopsy in Hepatocellular Carcinoma: Opportunities and Challenges for Immunotherapy Cancers hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) immunotherapies liquid biopsy circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) circulating tumor cells (CTC) |
| title | Liquid Biopsy in Hepatocellular Carcinoma: Opportunities and Challenges for Immunotherapy |
| title_full | Liquid Biopsy in Hepatocellular Carcinoma: Opportunities and Challenges for Immunotherapy |
| title_fullStr | Liquid Biopsy in Hepatocellular Carcinoma: Opportunities and Challenges for Immunotherapy |
| title_full_unstemmed | Liquid Biopsy in Hepatocellular Carcinoma: Opportunities and Challenges for Immunotherapy |
| title_short | Liquid Biopsy in Hepatocellular Carcinoma: Opportunities and Challenges for Immunotherapy |
| title_sort | liquid biopsy in hepatocellular carcinoma opportunities and challenges for immunotherapy |
| topic | hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) immunotherapies liquid biopsy circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) circulating tumor cells (CTC) |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6694/13/17/4334 |
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