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Hépato-Gastro & Oncologie Digestive

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Hepatocellular carcinoma: 3 years later Volume 17, issue 5, septembre-octobre 2010

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Author
Hôpital St Eloi, CHU Montpellier, avenue Augustin Fliche, 34295 Montpellier, France

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a common cancer that typically occurs in the setting of cirrhosis and chronic hepatitis virus infections. Its incidence is increasing dramatically in many parts of the world. Recognition of those at risk and early diagnosis by surveillance with imaging are extremely important. Indeed prognosis of HCC on cirrhosis is thus generally poor, and mainly varies depending on the stage of the tumor and the liver function. Despite this poor prognosis, many therapeutic options are available for HCC patients. The curative treatments include orthotopic liver transplantation, surgical resection, radiofrequency thermal ablation and offers hope of prolonged survival to many patients with this otherwise lethal complication of liver disease. The palliative treatments include transcatheter arterial chemoembolization and a systemic treatment with a multikinase inhibitor : the sorafenib, approved in 2007. Three years later, many questions still need to be address to optimize the therapeutic management of this disease.