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Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Hepatol. Jul 28, 2015; 7(15): 1964-1970
Published online Jul 28, 2015. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v7.i15.1964
Mechanisms of hepatocellular carcinoma and challenges and opportunities for molecular targeted therapy
Chuan Chen, Ge Wang
Chuan Chen, Ge Wang, Cancer Center, Research Institute of Surgery, Daping Hospital, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing 400042, China
Author contributions: Chen C and Wang G contributed to this paper.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declared that they have no conflicts of interest to this work.
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: Ge Wang, Professor, Cancer Center, Research Institute of Surgery, Daping Hospital, Third Military Medical University, No. 10 Changjiang Zhi Rd., Daping Yuzhong District, Chongqing 400042, China. wangge70@hotmail.com
Telephone: +86-23-687757161 Fax: +86-23-687757171
Received: September 1, 2014
Peer-review started: September 1, 2014
First decision: October 11, 2014
Revised: June 30, 2015
Accepted: July 16, 2015
Article in press: July 17, 2015
Published online: July 28, 2015
Processing time: 341 Days and 13.6 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: The molecular mechanism of hepatocarcinogenesis is complex and is associated with the regulation function of a variety of signal transduction pathways and key molecules. Presently, there are many drugs that target the molecules that are involved in tumor development (molecule-targeted drugs), but the specificity of such drugs is lacking. This paper summarizes the targeted molecular drugs which may be useful for the clinical treatment of liver cancer, and lays the theoretical foundation for the further study of more specific and effective drugs that target the molecules involved in liver cancer.