Serum tumor markers for detection of hepatocellular carcinoma

Abstract

Alpha-fetoprotein and alpha-fetoprotein-L3Alpha fetoprotein (AFP) is a fetal specific glycoprotein produced primarily by the fetal liver. Normally, its serum concentration falls rapidly after birth and its synthesis in adult life is repressed. However, greater than 70% of HCC patients have a high serum concentration of AFP because of the tumor excretion. Forty years after its discovery, serum AFP remains a most useful tumor marker in screening HCC patients. The serum concentration of 20 ng/mL is the most commonly used cut-off value to differentiate HCC patients from healthy adults in clinical researches. However, some investigations have showed that the cut-off value is fluctuant in different ethnic groups. REVIEW Serum tumor markers for detection of hepatocellular carcinoma AbstractHepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most frequent malignant tumors and is the second most common cause of cancer death in China. Therefore, it is very important to detect this disease and the recurrence at its earlier period. Serum tumor markers, as the effective method for detecting hepatocellular carcinoma for a long time, could be divided into 4 categories: oncofetal antigens and glycoprotein antigens; enzymes and isoenzymes; genes; and cytokines. Serum alpha fetoprotein (AFP) is the most widely used tumor marker in detecting patients with hepatocellular carcinoma, and has been proven to have capability of prefiguring the prognosis. However, it has been indicated that AFP-L3 and DCP excel AFP in differentiating hepatocellular c a r c i n o m a f r o m n o n m a l i g n a n t h e p a t o p a t h y a n d detecting small hepatocellular carcinoma. Some tumor markers, such as human cervical cancer oncogene and human telomerase reverse transcriptase mRNA, have also been indicated to have higher accuracies than AFP. Furthermore, some other tumor markers, such as glypican-3, gamma-glutamyl transferase II, alpha-lfucosidase, transforming growth factor-beta1, tumorspecific growth factor, have been indicated to be available supplementaries to AFP in the detection. AFP mRNA has been shown to correlate with the metastasis and recurrence of HCC, and it may be the most useful marker to prefigure the prognosis. Some other markers, such as gamma-glutamyl transferase mRNA, vascular endothelial growth factor, and interleukin-8, could also be used as available prognostic indicators, and the simultaneous determination of AFP and these markers may detect the recurrence of HCC at its earlier period.

S100A14 Promotes the Growth and Metastasis of Hepatocellular Carcinoma

“…Long-term survival after hepatic resection remains very poor for the majority of HCC patients who develop recurrence or metastasis (Zhou et al, 2006). Therefore, targeting invasion and metastasis is an attractive strategy for HCC therapy.…”

Clinical application of specific antibody against glypican-3 for hepatocellular carcinoma diagnosis

“…It is the second most common malignancy in China [2], and currently, imaging techniques are important for the detection of HCC. However, the accuracy of imaging techniques such as computed tomography scanning, ultrasonography or magnetic resonance imaging is relatively insufficient for the diagnosis of small lesions, or dysplastic and cirrhotic nodules.…”

Crosstalk between EGFR and p53 in Hepatocellular Carcinoma

“…Loss of p53 function in cancers occurs mostly due to allelic deletions at chromosome 17p13 (Jain et al, 2010). Mutant forms of p53 have a prolonged halflife, which favors intranuclear accumulation, becoming detectable immunohistochemically (Zhou et al, 2006). In several studies, the overexpression of p53 in the serum or liver tissues of HCC patients was associated with a poorer prognosis, a shorter survival time and tumor recurrence (Caruso et al, 1999;Hsia et al, 2000;Qin et al, 2001;Liu et al, 2012).…”