Hepatocellular Cancer

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most common type of primary liver cancer in adults, and currently it still remains third leading cause of cancer death. HCC affects patients’ chronic liver inflammation or cirrhosis, and it is most strictly associated to chronic viral hepatitis infection (such as hepatitis B or C) or exposure to alcohol or aflatoxin. Actually, metabolic syndrome and NASH are also increasingly recognized as risk factors for HCC. Treatment and prognosis of HCC vary depending on the particulars of tumor size, number of hepatic lesions, and metastatization, even if patient Child-Pugh classification can change the treatment and especially the prognosis. Localized and locally advanced settings are still based on resection, liver transplantation, ablation, and transcatheter arterial chemoembolization. Several improvements have been achieved in advanced and metastatic setting. Even if for the last 10 years, sorafenib was the only therapeutic strategy, nowadays new tyrosine kinase inhibitors and immune checkpoint inhibitors improved the survival of HCC patients.