Current Pharmaceutical Design - Volume 13, Issue 32, 2007

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is becoming a major health problem worldwide, both because of the constantly rising number of patients and of the poor prognosis of this disease. Therapies adopted so far mainly fight the cancer by removing the tumor or the whole liver whenever possible by transplantation, or by destroying it either by alcoholization, radiofrequency ablation (RFA) or transarterial chemoembolization (TACE). Th Read More

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most common primary malignancy of the liver. It represents the fifth most common cancer worldwide, and one whose incidence is on the rise. Liver cancer is the third most common cause of cancer mortality globally and thus a major health concern worldwide. Therapeutic options for this tumor include surgical resection, local ablative therapies, and systemic treatment. Liver transpla Read More

Hepatocellular carcinoma is in 90% of cases associated with cirrhosis and to preserve liver function while destroying the tumor is a main issue in these patients justifying the development of local percutaneous ablative therapies. Alcoholization and radiofrequency ablation are the most widely used techniques of percutaneous ablation. Both have in common limitations linked to the size of the tumor and its situation and contra i Read More

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a frequent neoplasia which still misses a therapeutical gold standard. Recently, new acquisitions in cancerogenesis process evidenced the genetic and epigenetic alterations of genes involved in the different metabolic pathways of liver cancer suggesting that antibodies, small molecules, demethylating agents, etc. specifically acting against molecular target can be utilized alone Read More

A better knowledge of the mechanisms underlying hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) growth and spread is essential to improve the available treatment options. So far, the only therapies available for HCC are mainly based on tumor-destructive approaches, whereas no therapies are available to consolidate these invasive therapies or to cure the tumor. The fact that HCC develops on cirrhotic liver strongly limits the us Read More

Present treatment options for hepatocellular cancer (HCC) are limited to those individuals with good liver function and early stage disease. Unfortunately this includes only a minority of patients, few of which are actually cured of their cancer. Over the last 15-20 years biotechnology has made a very significant impact on medical research, to the extent that we know very much more about the regulation of normal cell gr Read More

The increasing number of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and the highly unfavourable prognosis of the disease are two important reasons why more effort needs to be devoted to investigating other therapies able to block or reduce tumor progression and cancer metastasis. The underlying cirrhosis on which HCC develops limits the use of common chemotherapies, mainly because of their toxicity. Recently, gr Read More

Targeting COX-2, a key-enzyme of the prostaglandin metabolism, for the treatment of cancer has been in the focus of researchers for about a decade. However, only recently has this topic been related to hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). HCC is one of the most common cancers and a growing health problem worldwide. At present, only few promising treatment options are available, accentuating the urgent need for no Read More

Recent studies performed these last years on the proteome have demonstrated the usefulness of mass spectrometry The combination of mass spectrometry with classical biochemical methods has lead to the determination and identification of different proteins using proteomics studies in close relation with genome databases. Although such methods generally lead to the identification of novel proteins, they do not allow de Read More

With new emerging mass spectrometry technologies, it can now be demonstrated that direct tissue analysis is feasible using matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) sources. A major advantage of direct MALDI analysis is to avoid time-consuming extraction, purification or separation steps, which have the potential for producing artifacts. Direct MALDI analysis of tissue sections enables the acquisition of cellular expres Read More

Mass spectrometric imaging (MSI) integrates multiple fields of analytical and biomedical research with the goal of generating chemical maps that present the identity and location of the elements, molecules, and molecular complexes that comprise biological structures. Rapid advances in the development of MSI, which include a broad range of sampling and mass spectrometry strategies, allow the increasingly information-rich Read More

Recent technological and methodological improvements have greatly enhanced the sensitivity of the Time-of-flight Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (TOF-SIMS), thus making this technique now very attractive in the field of molecular imaging of biological samples such as tissue sections or cells. This paper reviews the most recent advances in this field. After a short reminder of the basic physics involved, the instr Read More

The lipid membrane is the portal to the cell and its first line of defense against the outside world. Its plasticity, diversity and powers of accommodation in a myriad of environments, mirrored by the varied make up of the cells it protects, are unparalleled. Glycerophospholipids are one of its major components. In cell membranes the extracellular layer is mainly made up of positively charged glycolipids, while the intr Read More