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To evaluate the effectiveness and safety of transarterial chemoembolization (TACE) combined with immune and targeted therapy in unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Prospective analysis of 23 patients with intermediate or advanced primary HCC treated at the Department of Hepatic Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of the University of Science and Technology of China from July 2019, including 11 cases treated with TACE alone and 12 cases treated with TACE combined with targeted therapy. The basal indexes of patients in the two groups were compared, and the response during treatment was observed; regular follow-up was performed to assess the efficacy of tumor treatment. Compared with TACE treatment alone, the objective response rate (ORR) was significantly higher in the TACE combined with targeted treatment group (50.0% vs 36.4%), with a higher success rate of surgical conversion (33.3% vs 18.2%) and a significantly longer progression-free survival (PFS) (20.5 ± 2.9 months vs 11.6 ± 2.9 months). Multifactorial regression analysis identified tumor vascular invasion as an independent prognostic factor affecting HCC. No patient experienced catheter retention-related complications during treatment, and there were no intolerable adverse effects. TACE combined with targeted treatment for intermediate to advanced unresectable HCC was effective, with good tumor responsiveness, high surgical conversion rate, and safe and controllable adverse reactions during treatment., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

BACKGROUND The aim of this study was to assess the effect of indocyanine green (ICG) fluorescence imaging combined with laparoscopic ultrasound in laparoscopic microwave ablation of liver cancer. MATERIAL AND METHODS This study retrospectively analyzed 61 patients who underwent laparoscopic microwave ablation of liver cancer, including laparoscopic microwave ablation with and without ICG fluoroscopy. RESULTS The operative times, ablation times, postoperative hospital stay, postoperative complication rate, hospitalization cost, postoperative liver function changes, and postoperative overall survival were similar between the 2 groups, but there was a statistically significant difference in recurrence-free survival (P<0.05). A total of 5 lesions were found in the fluorescence laparoscopy group that were not found by preoperative imaging, while no new lesions were found in the ordinary laparoscopy group. Fluorescence laparoscopy has obvious advantages over ordinary laparoscopy in finding small lesions that were not found before surgery. In terms of complete ablation rate, 3 patients in the ordinary laparoscopy group and 1 patient in the fluorescence laparoscopy group were judged to be incompletely ablated and were ablated again at 1 month after the operation. CONCLUSIONS For small hepatocellular carcinoma with severe liver cirrhosis and located on the liver surface, fluorescence laparoscopy can better reveal the location and boundary of the tumor, and fluorescence laparoscopy can detect tiny lesions that cannot be detected by preoperative imaging. The combination of fluorescence laparoscopy and microwave ablation has a good effect on the treatment of small hepatocellular carcinoma located on the surface of the liver that is difficult to distinguish.

Background: Tripartite Motif Containing 11 (TRIM11), a member of TRIM proteins is overexpressed in gliomas and lung cancer. However, the role of TRIM11 in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is unknown., Basic Procedures: Herein, we aimed to investigate the expression and clinical significance role of TRIM11 in HCC., Main Finding: In this study, our data showed significant higher TRIM11 in HCC tissues (n=117) than in the matched non-tumor liver (NTL) tissues (P<0.01). In consistent with above data, we also found TRIM11 protein expression was significantly increased compared with the matched NTL (P<0.01) by immunohistochemistry analysis. Additionally, our results showed that TRIM11 protein expression in HCC tissues was significantly associated with pathological grade (P<0.01), tumor postoperative metastasis (P=0.031), recurrence (P=0.022), and serum a-fetoprotein (AFP) (P<0.01). Moreover, patients' survival was negatively correlated with TRIM11 protein expression. Furthermore, we found that TRIM11 protein was an independent prognostic factor for disease-free (P<0.01) and overall survival (P<0.01) in HCC patients., Principal Conclusions: Our data showed that TRIM11 expression was significantly elevated in HCC tissues. The overexpression of TRIM11 is closely associated with HCC progression and poor survival of the patients, indicating TRIM11 is a potential therapeutic target for HCC patients., (Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.)

High expression of cancer stem cell (CSC) markers is related to poor prognosis of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). However, the expression of these markers in patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models and the relationship of the expression levels of these markers between HCC patients and their PDX models at subsequent low passages are unclear. To investigate the prognostic impact of putative CSC markers in patients with HCC and in related PDX models, the expression of CD133, CD90, CD44, ALDH1, CK7, CK19, OCT4, SOX2, vimentin, nestin, CD13 and EpCam were assessed by quantitative reverse transcription-PCR (qRT-PCR) and then were validated using immunohistochemistry in tumor or peritumoral tissues from patients and tumor tissues from PDX models. Cumulative survival analysis of the patients and animals was conducted using the Kaplan-Meier method and the log-rank test. Only the expression levels of CD133 and CD44 were higher in tumor tissues than in the peritumoral tissues of HCC patients by qRT-PCR. High consistency of the prognostic value of the expression of CD133/CD44 was observed in HCC patients and the PDX models. High expression levels of CD133 and CD44 were positively related to the poor prognosis of HCC patients and to that in the PDX models. PDX HCC models in the present study have been suggested to be predictive of disease outcome, which could shed light on personalized medicine and the mechanisms of CSC marker expression on prognosis., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no conflicts interests exist.