Hepatic sarcomatoid carcinoma is a rare liver malignancy with atypical clinical symptoms and a high degree of malignancy. To improve the understanding of this disease, we collected the clinical and pathological data of 14 patients with hepatic sarcomatoid carcinoma admitted to the First Affiliated Hospital and Second Affiliated Hospital of Bengbu Medical College from 2011 to 2021 and reviewed the relevant literature.The clinical and pathological data of 14 patients with hepatic sarcomatoid carcinoma were collected from the electronic medical record system of the 2 hospitals. All clinical data were independently reviewed by 2 clinicians, and all pathological data were independently reviewed by 2 pathologists. At the same time, we reviewed the related literature on hepatic sarcomatoid carcinoma in Pubmed and CNKI.This group of 14 patients, 10 males and 4 females, aged 50-77 years. The main symptoms of the patients were abdominal pain, bloating, anorexia, fatigue or weight loss in the upper abdomen, and 3 patients were asymptomatic. On imaging, hepatic sarcomatoid carcinoma manifests as heterogeneous mass with irregular shape and unclear boundary, and computed tomography (CT)/magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) enhanced scan shows progressive or persistent heterogeneous enhancement, marginal enhancement or annular enhancement, and central necrosis. The pathological features of hepatic sarcomatoid carcinoma are the proliferation of spindle cells and pleomorphic cells, which alternate with acinar cells.Hepatic sarcomatoid carcinoma is more common in middle-aged and elderly patients, especially men, and has no characteristic clinical manifestations. Imaging examination and B-ultrasound-guided liver biopsy + immunohistochemistry can help diagnose. Radical surgery is the preferred method for hepatic sarcomatoid carcinoma, and postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy is expected to prolong patient survival.

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BackgroundHepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) represents a complex ailment characterized by an unfavorable prognosis in advanced stages. The involvement of immune cells in HCC progression is of significant importance. Moreover, metastasis poses a substantial impediment to enhanced prognostication for HCC patients, with anoikis playing an indispensable role in facilitating the distant metastasis of tumor cells. Nevertheless, limited investigations have been conducted regarding the utilization of anoikis factors for predicting HCC prognosis and assessing immune infiltration. This present study aims to identify hepatocellular carcinoma-associated anoikis-related genes (ANRGs), establish a robust prognostic model for HCC, and delineate distinct immune characteristics based on the anoikis signature. Cell migration and cytotoxicity experiments were performed to validate the accuracy of the ANRGs model.MethodsConsensus clustering based on ANRGs was employed in this investigation to categorize HCC samples obtained from both TCGA and Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) cohorts. To assess the differentially expressed genes, Cox regression analysis was conducted, and subsequently, prognostic gene signatures were constructed using LASSO-Cox methodology. External validation was performed at the International Cancer Genome Conference. The tumor microenvironment (TME) was characterized utilizing ESTIMATE and CIBERSORT algorithms, while machine learning techniques facilitated the identification of potential target drugs. The wound healing assay and CCK-8 assay were employed to evaluate the migratory capacity and drug sensitivity of HCC cell lines, respectively.ResultsUtilizing the TCGA-LIHC dataset, we devised a nomogram integrating a ten-gene signature with diverse clinicopathological features. Furthermore, the discriminative potential and clinical utility of the ten-gene signature and nomogram were substantiated through ROC analysis and DCA. Subsequently, we devised a prognostic framework leveraging gene expression data from distinct risk cohorts to predict the drug responsiveness of HCC subtypes.ConclusionIn this study, we have established a promising HCC prognostic ANRGs model, which can serve as a valuable tool for clinicians in selecting targeted therapeutic drugs, thereby improving overall patient survival rates. Additionally, this model has also revealed a strong connection between anoikis and immune cells, providing a potential avenue for elucidating the mechanisms underlying immune cell infiltration regulated by anoikis.

Background Invasion and metastasis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is still an important reason for poor prognosis. LincRNA ZNF529-AS1 is a recently identified tumour-associated molecule that is differentially expressed in a variety of tumours, but its role in HCC is still unclear. This study investigated the expression and function of ZNF529-AS1 in HCC and explored the prognostic significance of ZNF529-AS1 in HCC. Methods Based on HCC information in TCGA and other databases, the relationship between the expression of ZNF529-AS1 and clinicopathological characteristics of HCC was analysed by the Wilcoxon signed-rank test and logistic regression. The relationship between ZNF529-AS1 and HCC prognosis was evaluated by Kaplan‒Meier and Cox regression analyses. The cellular function and signalling pathways involved in ZNF529-AS1 were analysed by GO and KEGG enrichment analysis. The relationship between ZNF529-AS1 and immunological signatures in the HCC tumour microenvironment was analysed by the ssGSEA algorithm and CIBERSORT algorithm. HCC cell invasion and migration were investigated by the Transwell assay. Gene and protein expression were detected by PCR and western blot analysis, respectively. Results ZNF529-AS1 was differentially expressed in various types of tumours and was highly expressed in HCC. The expression of ZNF529-AS1 was closely correlated with the age, sex, T stage, M stage and pathological grade of HCC patients. Univariate and multivariate analyses showed that ZNF529-AS1 was significantly associated with poor prognosis of HCC patients and could be an independent prognostic indicator of HCC. Immunological analysis showed that the expression of ZNF529-AS1 was correlated with the abundance and immune function of various immune cells. Knockdown of ZNF529-AS1 in HCC cells inhibited cell invasion and migration and inhibited the expression of FBXO31. Conclusion ZNF529-AS1 could be a new prognostic marker for HCC. FBXO31 may be the downstream target of ZNF529-AS1 in HCC.