Guardian and Selective Killer: The Versatile Functions of TLR3 in Hepatocellular Carcinoma
Menée à l'aide de modèles murins et d'échantillons tumoraux prélevés sur 172 patients atteints d'un carcinome hépatocellulaire, cette étude met en évidence le rôle joué par le récepteur TLR3 dans la progression de la maladie
Current chemotherapy and radiation therapies for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), which causes 500,000 deaths per year worldwide, are not very effective. The recently approved multikinase inhibitor Sorafenib modestly improves survival by a few months in some patients with advanced cancer. Surgical resection and liver transplantation can be performed in less than 20% of patients. Thus, development of novel diagnostic and prognostic approaches and therapeutic modalities for HCC is urgently needed. HCC is unique compared with other human cancers because the majority of HCC occurs in patients with chronic liver diseases, especially viral hepatitis (ie, hepatitis B and hepatitis C) and liver cirrhosis due to various etiologies. The latent period from the original disease to the development of HCC usually ranges from 10 to 30 years; this long window of time provides an opportunity for investigating cancer development and designing strategies for intervention...
Journal of the National Cancer Institute , commentaire en libre accès, 2012