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World J Gastroenterol. Jan 21, 2022; 28(3): 310-331
Published online Jan 21, 2022. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v28.i3.310
Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and hepatocellular carcinoma: Clinical challenges of an intriguing link
Lampros Chrysavgis, Ilias Giannakodimos, Panagiota Diamantopoulou, Evangelos Cholongitas
Lampros Chrysavgis, Department of Experimental Physiology, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens 11527, Greece
Ilias Giannakodimos, Panagiota Diamantopoulou, Evangelos Cholongitas, First Department of Internal Medicine, "Laiko" General Hospital of Athens, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens 11527, Greece
Author contributions: Chrysavgis L performed the investigation, conceptualization, writing-original draft, visualization; Giannakodimos I and Diamantopoulou P contributed to the writing-original draft, and validation; Cholongitas E performed the resources, writing-review and editing, supervision, project administration; all authors have read and agreed to the final version of the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors have nothing to disclose related to the manuscript.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Evangelos Cholongitas, MD, PhD, Associate Professor, First Department of Internal Medicine, "Laiko" General Hospital of Athens, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Agiou Thoma 17, Athens 11527, Greece. cholongitas@yahoo.gr
Received: September 9, 2021
Peer-review started: September 9, 2021
First decision: October 16, 2021
Revised: October 19, 2021
Accepted: January 6, 2022
Article in press: January 6, 2022
Published online: January 21, 2022
Processing time: 125 Days and 17.5 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is projected to emerge as the leading cause of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) worldwide. Demographic factors, genetic predisposition and behavioral parameters have been identified as independent risk factors for NAFLD-related HCC, which can arise even in the absence of cirrhosis. Currently, the most challenging issue for the scientific community worldwide is the identification of the pre-cirrhotic NAFLD patients who have increased risk for HCC. Noteworthy, the central concept for the surveillance policies in the near future should be the identification, via an individual, risk-assessment based precision screening of high-risk NAFLD patients, cirrhotic or not.