Our previous study indicated that postoperative adjuvant transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE) could improve the survival of patients with risk factors for residual tumor.34 In our study, patients with a high risk of recurrence, evidenced by clinical features such as vascular invasion and microsatellite lesions, were given one to three courses of prophylactic TACE
(doxorubicin, cisplatin, 5-fluorouracil, and iodized oil) 1 month after surgery.35 Fulvestrant We retrospectively collected the data of HCC patients with ≥2 CTCs who performed the prophylactic TACE and compared the antirecurrence results with those who did not perform TACE, and found that prophylactic TACE was RO4929097 beneficial in preventing recurrence in patients with ≥2 CTCs (P = 0.006) (Supporting Fig. 4). However, randomized controlled trials are needed for further validation. The limitations of this study are its relatively small cohort size, short follow-up time, and data from a single study center. A prospective, multicenter, randomized clinical trial should be designed to further validate the prognostic significance of CTCs in HCC. To our knowledge, this is the first report to identify the stem cell–like characteristics of EpCAM+ CTCs and their prognostic significance using the standardized CellSearch system in HCC patients. A preoperative EpCAM+ CTC7.5 level of ≥2 is an independent prognostic
indicator for recurrence in
HCC patients undergoing curative resection. Monitoring dynamic changes of perioperative CTCs may be a promising predictor of the response of the therapeutic regimen. Eradicating these cells might open a therapeutic avenue toward preventing HCC recurrence. Additional Supporting Information may be found in the online version of this article. “
“The differentiation of embryonic or determined stem cell populations into adult liver fates under known conditions yields cells with some adult-specific genes but not others, aberrant regulation of one or more genes, and variations in the results from experiment to experiment. We tested the hypothesis that sets of signals produced by freshly isolated, lineage-dependent mesenchymal cell populations would yield greater efficiency and reproducibility in driving 上海皓元 the differentiation of human hepatic stem cells (hHpSCs) into adult liver fates. The subpopulations of liver-derived mesenchymal cells, purified by immunoselection technologies, included (1) angioblasts, (2) mature endothelia, (3) hepatic stellate cell precursors, (4) mature stellate cells (pericytes), and (5) myofibroblasts. Freshly immunoselected cells of each of these subpopulations were established in primary cultures under wholly defined (serum-free) conditions that we developed for short-term cultures and were used as feeders with hHpSCs.