Branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs), including leucine, isoleucine, and valine, are essential for maintaining physiological functions and metabolic homeostasis. However, chronic elevation of BCAAs causes metabolic diseases such as obesity, type 2 diabetes (T2D), and metabolic-associated fatty liver disease (MAFLD). Adipose tissue, skeletal muscle, and the liver are the three major metabolic tissues not only responsible for controlling glucose, lipid, and energy balance but also for maintaining BCAA homeostasis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCancer Lett
February 2024
J Gastroenterol Hepatol
August 2023
Background: Baveno VII criteria for predicting varices needing treatment (VNT) have not been tested in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) population. We evaluated Baveno VII consensus for VNT in HCC patients of different stages according to Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer (BCLC) stages undergoing curative hepatectomy.
Methods: This was a prospective cohort study of patients with HCC.
Cancers (Basel)
April 2023
The Baveno VII criteria are used in patients with liver cirrhosis to predict high-risk varices in patients with liver cirrhosis. Yet its use in patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) has not been validated. HCC alone is accompanied with a higher variceal bleeding risk due to its association with liver cirrhosis and portal vein thrombosis.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMol Cancer
January 2023
Background: Excessive extracellular matrix deposition and increased stiffness are typical features of solid tumors such as hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). These conditions create confined spaces for tumor cell migration and metastasis. The regulatory mechanism of confined migration remains unclear.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground And Aims: Major genomic drivers of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) are nowadays well recognized, although models to establish their roles in human HCC initiation remain scarce. Here, we used human liver organoids in experimental systems to mimic the early stages of human liver carcinogenesis from the genetic lesions of TP53 loss and L3 loop R249S mutation. In addition, chromatin immunoprecipitation sequencing (ChIP-seq) of HCC cell lines shed important functional insights into the initiation of HCC consequential to the loss of tumor-suppressive function from TP53 deficiency and gain-of-function activities from mutant p53.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUracil misincorporation during DNA replication is a major cell toxic event, of which cancer cells overcome by activating the dUTPase enzyme. The DUT gene is the only known dUTPase in human. Despite reports on common upregulations in cancers, the role of DUT in human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains largely undetermined.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMedicine (Baltimore)
January 2022
Stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) is a novel noninvasive treatment for unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Whether its efficacy is comparable to radiofrequency ablation (RFA), a recommended therapy for unresectable HCC, is unknown. The present study aims to compare the clinical outcome between SBRT and RFA for patients with unresectable HCC.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFExpression of ATP-binding cassette B5 (ABCB5) has been demonstrated to confer chemoresistance, enhance cancer stem cell properties and associate with poor prognosis in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The aim of this study was to evaluate the genetic variations of ABCB5 in HCC patients with reference to healthy individuals and the clinicopathological significance. A pilot study has examined 20 out of 300 pairs HCC and paralleled blood samples using conventional sequencing method to cover all exons and exon/intron regions to investigate whether there will be novel variant sequence and mutation event.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSurg Oncol
September 2019
Background: An accurate prediction model of early recurrence of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) after hepatectomy is important to ascertain the postoperative adjuvant treatment and surveillance.
Methods: This is a retrospective cohort study including 1125 patients with HCC underwent curative hepatic resection. They were randomly divided into training (n = 562) and validation (n = 563) sets.
Introduction: Choledocholithiasis during pregnancy is relatively uncommon but it can be life-threatening. Therapeutic endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) poses the risk of ionizing radiation exposure to the developing fetus. Other strategies are thus needed to tackle this problem.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground & Aims: The impact of hepatitis B core antibody (anti-HBc) positive liver grafts on survival and the risk of de novo hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection after liver transplantation (LT) remain controversial. Therefore, we aimed to analyze this risk and the associated outcomes in a large cohort of patients.
Methods: This was a retrospective study that included all adults who underwent LT at Queen Mary Hospital, Hong Kong, between 2000 and 2015.
Surg Oncol
March 2019
Background: This study compared outcomes of nonresectable hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) who had transarterial chemoembolization (TACE) vs. stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) after TACE (TACE + SBRT).
Methods: This was a retrospective study of 2 centers in Hong Kong.
Introduction: Implantation failure is the main factor affecting the success rate of in vitro fertilization (IVF) procedures. Studies have reported that uterine contractions (UCs) at the time of embryo transfer (ET) were inversely related to implantation and pregnancy rate, hence reducing the success of IVF treatment. Various pharmacological agents, with the exception of calcium channel blocker (CCB), have been investigated to reduce UC.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To study the correlations and discrepancies between Child-Pugh system and indocyanine green (ICG) clearance test in assessing liver function reserve and explore the possibility of combining two systems to gain an overall liver function assessment.
Design: Retrospective analysis of 2832 hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients graded as Child-Pugh A and Child-Pugh B with ICG clearance test being performed was conducted.
Results: ICG retention rate at 15 minutes (ICG15) correlates with Child-Pugh score, however, with a large variance.
Liver Transpl
October 2011
Microvascular invasion is a poor prognostic indicator of the recurrence of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) after surgical treatment. Positron emission tomography (PET) with [(18) F]fludeoxyglucose ([(18) F]FDG) as a tracer has been employed to predict the prognosis before surgery for various kinds of tumors, but it has not been found to be sensitive enough for HCC. Thus, [(11) C]acetate has been adopted as an additional tracer.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To investigate the trend of the posthepatectomy survival outcomes of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients by analysis of a prospective cohort of 1198 patients over a 20-year period.
Background: The hospital mortality rate of hepatectomy for HCC has improved but the long-term survival rate remains unsatisfactory. We reported an improvement of survival results 10 years ago.
Objective: This study aims to evaluate the outcome of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) treated by high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) in a single tertiary referral center.
Background: HIFU is the latest developed local ablation technique for unresectable HCC. The initial experience on its efficacy is promising, but the survival benefit of patients undergoing HIFU for HCC is poorly defined.
The middle hepatic vein may be included in right liver living donor liver transplantation (LDLT) to optimize hepatic venous outflow. We studied the graft's ability to relieve portal hypertension and accommodate portal hyperperfusion with portal manometry and ultrasonic flowmetry. Surgical outcomes with respect to portal hemodynamometry were also investigated.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAim: To assess the efficacy and safety of percutaneous transhepatic cholecystostomy (PTC) in treatment for acute cholecystitis in high surgical risk patients.
Patients And Methods: A retrospective review was carried out from January 1999 to June 2007 on 23 patients, 11 males and 12 females, who underwent PTC for the management of acute cholecystitis at the Department of Surgery, Queen Mary Hospital, Hong Kong, China. The mean age of the patients was 83.
Aim: To analyze the combined treatment of resection and intraoperative radiofrequency ablation (RFA) for multifocal hepatocellular carcinoma in terms of prognosis and surgical outcomes.
Methods: This study was a retrospective case comparison study using prospectively collected data. The study covered the period from April 2001 to December 2006.
We report an emergency paired donor interchange living donor liver transplant performed on January 13, 2009. The 4 operations (2 liver transplants) were performed simultaneously. The aim was to avoid 2 ABO-incompatible liver transplants.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFConventional hepatectomy is an effective way to treat hepatocellular carcinoma. However, it is invasive and stressful. The use of laparoscopy in hepatectomy, while technically demanding, reduces surgical invasiveness and stressfulness but still achieves complete resection with adequate margins.
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