Genetic heterogeneity in hepatocellular carcinoma and paired bone metastasis revealed by next-generation sequencing.

Although bone involvement is reported as uncommon in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), its incidence has significantly increased in the last decade due to the longer survival of HCC patients related to recent progresses made both in the diagnosis and treatment of the disease. A better understanding of the pathogenic mechanisms underlying the spread of bone metastases in HCC is important. The primary tumor and its corresponding metastases are different at the molecular marker expression or gene status levels and that these differences may affect the clinical outcome of anticancer therapy, particularly in molecularly targeted therapies for the treatment of cancer. No study has investigated the genetic heterogeneity between HCC and paired bone metastasis. In this study, we investigated the genetic heterogeneity in HCC and paired metastasis using a next generation sequencing (NGS) platform to illustrate the molecularly targeted therapy related genes mutations.