Usefulness of cancer-testis antigens as biomarkers for the diagnosis and treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma.

Despite advances in our cellular and molecular knowledge, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains one of the major public health problems throughout the world. It is now known to be highly heterogeneous: it encompasses various pathological entities and a wide range of clinical behaviors, and is underpinned by a complex array of gene alterations that affect supra-molecular processes.Four families of HCC tumour markers have been recently proposed: a) onco-fetal and glycoprotein antigens; b) enzymes and iso-enzymes; c) cytokines and d) genes.