Serum markers of hepatocellular carcinoma / 肿瘤研究与临床

ABSTRACT

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common malignant tumor with increasing incidence worldwid.Most of patients with HCC are diagnosed at a late stage.Threrfore,the prognosis of HCC patients is generally poor with a 5-year survival rate of 20% if withoutoperration. Screening strategies including α-fetoprotein (AFP) and ultrasound every 6 months in patients with liver cirrhosis,the major risk factor for HCC development, have been recommended to detect HCC at earlier stages amenable to effective treatment strateges.AFP, however,is a marker with poor sensitivity and specificity and the ultrasound is highly dependent on the operator's experience.Apart from AFP, lens culinaris agglutinin-reactive AFP and des-gamma carbexyprothrombin and several other biomarkers(e.g., glypican-3,human hepatocyte growth factor,and insulin-like growth factor) have been proposed as markers for HCC detection.In addition,with recently employed techniques,such as gene-expressing microarrays and proteomics,it is to be expected that new HCC-specific markers will become available in the near future.For all such proposed markers,however,the clinical usefulness has to be carefully evaluated and validated.