Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (commonly called fatty liver disease) increases the risk of developing liver cancer, but for doctors, this risk is still difficult to assess and the cancer is sometimes detected late. Also, researchers at Southwestern University in Texas are looking to develop a blood test that would detect certain cancer biomarkers in patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease to predict who is most at risk. to develop cancer.
Fatty liver disease has become the fastest growing cause of liver cancer in the world, in particular due to the obesity epidemic which affects all continents. “For patients considered most at risk of cancer, a screening program involving liver ultrasound every 6 months is recommended. But identifying patients who belong to this group is difficult and generally involves invasive biopsies” explain the researchers.
A test that identifies patients at low risk of cancer
They therefore developed an easy-to-do blood test, based on blood samples from 409 patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. These samples revealed a set of 133 genes expressed at above or below average levels in the livers of patients who developed cancer during a 15-year follow-up.
“This test is particularly good at telling us who are low-risk patients who don’t need very close follow-up,” said study lead author Dr Yujin Hoshida.
Dr. Hoshida’s team plans to continue evaluating the usefulness of his blood test in larger groups of patients around the world. Other tests could also be developed to measure the risk of cancer in other major liver diseases such as hepatitis B and cirrhosis of the liver.
Source : Molecular signatures of long-term hepatocellular carcinoma risk in nonalcoholic fatty liver diseaseScience translational medicine, June 2022
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