肝癌验血

StephenW

Highlight of the month
A blood test for liver cancer
© Douglas Sacha/Moment/Getty

© Douglas Sacha/Moment/Getty

Early intervention offers a greatly improved prognosis for patients of hepatocellular carcinoma, the most common type of primary liver cancer. Diagnosing and monitoring the condition, however, requires CT or ultrasound imaging, or an invasive tissue biopsy. Now, thanks to a biomarker identified by a China-US collaboration, a simple blood test could soon provide clinicians with a quick assessment of a cancer patient’s status and prognosis.

Kang Zhang, of Sichuan University, China, led a team of US and Chinese researchers to assess whether fragments of tumour-originating DNA that circulate in a cancer patient’s blood, known as ctDNA, could act as a biomarker for hepatocellular carcinoma. ctDNA can be readily assayed for modifications to DNA known as methylation, a mechanism by which tumor suppressor genes are silenced in early cancer development.

Comparing samples from 1,098 hepatocellular carcinoma patients and 835 healthy individuals, the team found that ctDNA methylation patterns are predictive of cancer presence, progression, and prognosis. Methylation testing can be performed via a non-invasive blood test and fulfils a clinical need for an effective ‘liquid biopsy’ HCC screening method.



Supported content

    Nature Materials 16, 1155–1161 (2017). doi: 10.1038/nmat4997

StephenW

本月的亮点
肝癌验血
©Douglas Sacha / Moment / Getty

©Douglas Sacha / Moment / Getty

早期干预对肝细胞癌患者，最常见的原发性肝癌类型患者预后有很大改善。然而，诊断和监测病情需要CT或超声成像或浸润性组织活检。现在，由于中美合作确定的生物标志物，简单的血液检测可以很快为临床医生提供对癌症患者状态和预后的快速评估。

中国四川大学的Kang Zhang带领一组美国和中国研究人员评估在癌症患者血液中循环的肿瘤来源的DNA碎片（称为ctDNA）是否可以作为肝细胞癌的生物标志物。可以容易地测定ctDNA对DNA的修饰，即已知为甲基化的DNA，这是在癌症早期发展中抑制肿瘤的基因沉默的机制。

该研究小组比较了1,098例肝细胞癌患者和835例健康人的样本，发现ctDNA甲基化模式可预测癌症的存在，进展和预后。甲基化检测可通过无创血液检测进行，并满足临床对有效“液体活检”HCC筛查方法的需求。



支持的内容

    Nature Materials 16,1155-1161（2017）。 doi：10.1038 / nmat4997