Giri S, Mukhuty A, Mondal SA, Sahoo J, Roy A, Kamalanathan S, Naik D. Link between type 2 diabetes mellitus and hepatocellular carcinoma. World J Hepatol 2025; 17(7): 107675 [DOI: 10.4254/wjh.v17.i7.107675]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Jayaprakash Sahoo, DM, Full Professor, Department of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research, D. Nagar, Gorimedu, JIPMER Campus, Puducherry 605006, India. jppgi@yahoo.com
Research Domain of This Article
Gastroenterology & Hepatology
Article-Type of This Article
Minireviews
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (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/
World J Hepatol. Jul 27, 2025; 17(7): 107675 Published online Jul 27, 2025. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v17.i7.107675
Link between type 2 diabetes mellitus and hepatocellular carcinoma
Somdatta Giri, Alpana Mukhuty, Samim A Mondal, Jayaprakash Sahoo, Ayan Roy, Sadishkumar Kamalanathan, Dukhabandhu Naik
Somdatta Giri, Ayan Roy, Department of Endocrinology and Metabolism, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Kayani 741245, West Bengal, India
Alpana Mukhuty, Department of Zoology, Rampurhat College, Birbhum 731224, West Bengal, India
Samim A Mondal, Jayaprakash Sahoo, Sadishkumar Kamalanathan, Dukhabandhu Naik, Department of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research, Puducherry 605006, India
Co-first authors: Somdatta Giri and Alpana Mukhuty.
Author contributions: Giri S did the literature search wrote the first draft and gave intellectual input; Giri S and Mukhuty A contributed equally to this article, they are the co-first authors of this manuscript; Mondal SA and Mukhuty A did the mechanistic approach; Sahoo J, Roy A, Kamalanathan S, and Naik D conceptualized the work, supervised the writing, gave intellectual inputs, and critically revised the manuscript; and all authors thoroughly reviewed and endorsed the final manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
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: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Jayaprakash Sahoo, DM, Full Professor, Department of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research, D. Nagar, Gorimedu, JIPMER Campus, Puducherry 605006, India. jppgi@yahoo.com
Received: April 7, 2025 Revised: April 29, 2025 Accepted: July 2, 2025 Published online: July 27, 2025 Processing time: 120 Days and 3.4 Hours
Abstract
Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) have a strong bidirectional relationship. T2DM increases the risk of developing HCC, mainly through the nonalcoholic steatohepatitis pathway, but a significant proportion of patients develop HCC without developing cirrhosis. The identification of HCC in T2DM patients is difficult considering the low incidence of HCC and the high prevalence of T2DM. However, considering the alarming increase in the incidence of diabetes mellitus in the global population, effective strategies are urgently needed to identify patients at high risk. Nonetheless, various classes of drugs, such as sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitors and incretin analogs, may be promising for reducing the risk of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis and HCC development in T2DM patients in the future. In this review, we discuss all these facets of the relationship between HCC and T2DM, and we summarize future directions.
Core Tip: Type 2 diabetes mellitus increases the hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) risk and also impacts the treatment response of HCC. The molecular pathways of diabetes, development of its complications are interconnected with HCC. However, only a subset of HCC cases in type 2 diabetes mellitus are driven by nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, suggesting the involvement of additional pathogenic pathways. Newer generation anti-diabetic and anti-obesity drugs like sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitors and incretin analogues can hold promises in the future.
