News by Subject Medicine & Health

New preclinical data from University of California San Diego School of Medicine and Moores Cancer Center offers proof-of-principle for a combination immunotherapy that suppresses tumor growth in the liver. Current therapies for liver cancer are largely ineffective, resulting in poor outcomes.

Genetron Health Co. Ltd and National Cancer Center/ Cancer Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences published the promising results of their liver cancer early screening study using cell free DNA and protein biomarkers. This product for screening HCC in at-risk populations, will be further validated and then available for use. This methodology is expected to be applied in early screening of other cancer types.

The liver is the only organ in the body that can regenerate. But some patients who undergo a liver resection, a surgery that removes a diseased portion of the organ, end up needing a transplant because the renewal process doesn't work. A new Michigan State University study, published in the journal Blood, shows that the blood-clotting protein fibrinogen may hold the key as to why this happens.

MIT researchers have shown an engineered model of human liver tissue can be used to investigate nucleic acid-based therapies, such as RNA interference, before testing them in patients.

A nationwide consortium of researchers has identified the first genetic defect linked to biliary atresia, a mysterious liver disease that is the leading cause for liver transplantation in children.

In a study published in the prestigious scientific journal, Nature, a team of researchers from the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute, University of California, and University of Sydney, have discovered biomarkers in the blood that can predict the accumulation of toxic fats in the liver, which are a sign of early fatty liver disease.

This study used data for participants followed-up for 24 years as part of two well-known study groups to examine the association between whole grain and dietary fiber intake with the risk of hepatocellular carcinoma, a predominant form of liver cancer.

Rats are used commonly in nonclinical drug-development studies (DDS). Miki Nakajima and colleagues at Kanazawa University (Kanazawa, Japan) quantified hepatic and intestinal mRNA expression of uridine 5'-diphospho-glucuronosyltransferase (Ugt) isoforms in rats. They revealed strain- and sex-based differences in expression of Ugts in rats. This study would be helpful for pharmaceutical scientists in choosing the strains and sex of rats for DDS.

More than 10 percent of patients waiting for a liver transplant die each year. This observational study looked at trends in the transplantation of livers from older donors (70 and older) and outcomes in recipients of these older livers from 2003 to 2016. There was a decrease in the use of liver grafts from older donors despite improvements in liver graft loss and death among recipients of these older liver grafts.

Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU) researchers used substantial datasets on liver cancer patients to develop a new classification of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) into three distinct subgroups with different genetic, immunological, and clinical features. The findings of HCC subtypes related to metabolic disease, immunosuppression, or mitogenic/stem-cell-like tumors should aid the development of more targeted treatment and promote the fight against this devastating disease.