Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Hepatol. Jun 18, 2015; 7(11): 1460-1483
Published online Jun 18, 2015. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v7.i11.1460
Multidisciplinary perspective of hepatocellular carcinoma: A Pacific Northwest experience
Matthew M Yeh, Raymond S Yeung, Smith Apisarnthanarax, Renuka Bhattacharya, Carlos Cuevas, William P Harris, Tony Lim Kiat Hon, Siddharth A Padia, James O Park, Kevin M Riggle, Sayed S Daoud
Matthew M Yeh, Raymond S Yeung, Department of Pathology, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA 99210, United States
Matthew M Yeh, Renuka Bhattacharya, William P Harris, Department of Medicine, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA 99210, United States
Raymond S Yeung, James O Park, Kevin M Riggle, Department of Surgery, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA 99210, United States
Smith Apisarnthanarax, Department of Radiation Oncology, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA 99210, United States
Carlos Cuevas, Siddharth A Padia, Department of Radiology, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA 99210, United States
Tony Lim Kiat Hon, Department of Pathology, Singapore General Hospital, Singapore 169608, Singapore
Matthew M Yeh, Raymond S Yeung, Smith Apisarnthanarax, Renuka Bhattacharya, Carlos Cuevas, William P Harris, Siddharth A Padia, James O Park, Kevin M Riggle, Northwest Liver Research Program, Seattle, WA 99210, United States
Sayed S Daoud, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Washington State University Health Sciences, Spokane, WA 99210, United States
Author contributions: All the authors reviewed the literature and wrote the manuscript; Yeh MM and Daoud SS edited the paper.
Conflict-of-interest: The authors have declared no conflict of interest.
Open-Access: 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/
Correspondence to: Sayed S Daoud, PhD, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Washington State University Health Sciences, 412 E Spokane Falls Blvd, Spokane, WA 99210, United States. daoud@wsu.edu
Telephone: +1-509-3686572 Fax: +1-509-3587967
Received: August 29, 2014
Peer-review started: August 30, 2014
First decision: December 17, 2014
Revised: April 3, 2015
Accepted: April 27, 2015
Article in press: April 29, 2015
Published online: June 18, 2015
Core Tip

Core tip: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the few tumors in which the incidence is on the rise worldwide, especially in the United States. The overall increase in the incidence warrants efforts to prevent and to more efficiently treat this disease. This necessitates the need for a multidisciplinary approach for the management of HCC, because there are many etiological factors involved in the pathogenesis and malignant transformation of the disease. For example, there is a need to improve surveillance and early diagnosis through diagnostic imaging modalities to facilitate identification of potential molecular targets for novel therapeutic strategies. In turn, this will facilitate the identification of patients at risk. This review summarizes current knowledge on the clinical management of the disease as well as etiologic mechanisms of malignant transformation for better diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment of HCC.