Circulating tumour DNA in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma across tumour stages and treatments

Objective
Circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA) is a promising non-invasive biomarker in cancer. We aim to assess the dynamic of ctDNA in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).

Design
We analysed 772 plasmas from 173 patients with HCC collected at the time of diagnosis or treatment (n=502), 24 hours after locoregional treatment (n=154) and during follow-up (n=116). For controls, 56 plasmas from patients with chronic liver disease without HCC were analysed. All samples were analysed for cell free DNA (cfDNA) concentration, and for mutations in TERT promoter, CTNNB1, TP53, PIK3CA and NFE2L2 by sequencing and droplet-based digital PCR. Results were compared with 232 corresponding tumour samples.

Results
In patients with active HCC, 40.2% of the ctDNA was mutated vs 14.6% in patients with inactive HCC and 1.8% in controls (p

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Ottobre 2024

Non-linear association of baseline viral load with on-treatment hepatocellular carcinoma risk in chronic hepatitis B: still needs further discussion

We read with great interest the recent article by Choi et al.1 By analysing the data of a multicentre historical cohort including 4693 adult patients with chronic hepatitis B (CHB), they concluded that patients with moderate baseline viral loads, particularly around 6 log10 IU/mL, demonstrated the highest on-treatment hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) risk. Because this conclusion is interesting and different from the findings of some previous studies,2 3 which may affect the timing of treatment initiation for many patients with CHB, findings of this study should be cautiously viewed. Here, we highlight some points that need further discussion. First, the authors investigated the association between on-treatment HCC risk and various baseline characteristics. However, some indicators (recently emerging biomarkers: quantified hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg)4 5; common clinical characteristics: serum albumin,2 diabetes mellitus,6 family history of HCC,

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Ottobre 2024