Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Hepatol. May 18, 2015; 7(8): 1041-1053
Published online May 18, 2015. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v7.i8.1041
Advanced hepatocellular carcinoma and sorafenib: Diagnosis, indications, clinical and radiological follow-up
Stefano Colagrande, Francesco Regini, Gian Giacomo Taliani, Cosimo Nardi, Andrea Lorenzo Inghilesi
Stefano Colagrande, Francesco Regini, Gian Giacomo Taliani, Cosimo Nardi, Dipartimento di Scienze Biomediche, Sperimentali e Cliniche, Università degli Studi di Firenze-Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria Careggi, 50134 Florence, Italy
Andrea Lorenzo Inghilesi, Dipartimento di Medicina Sperimentale e Clinica, Università degli Studi di Firenze-Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria Careggi, 50134 Florence, Italy
Author contributions: All authors contributed to this manuscript.
Supported by Protocollo TESORM by Regione Toscana, Università degli Studi di Firenze and Bayer Health Care s.p.a.
Conflict-of-interest: None.
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: Stefano Colagrande, MD, Dipartimento di Scienze Biomediche, Sperimentali e Cliniche, Università degli Studi di Firenze-Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria Careggi, Radiodiagnostica 2, Largo Brambilla 3, 50134 Florence, Italy. stefano.colagrande@unifi.it
Telephone: +39-055-7947189 Fax: +39-055-431970
Received: October 29, 2014
Peer-review started: November 1, 2014
First decision: December 12, 2014
Revised: December 27, 2014
Accepted: January 30, 2015
Article in press: February 2, 2015
Published online: May 18, 2015
Core Tip

Core tip: Advanced stage hepatocellular carcinoma comprehends a wide range of patients with different general conditions. The main therapeutic option is represented by sorafenib. Although the treatment has shown a significant increase in mean overall survival, only a part of patients actually shows benefits. Differentiating responder from non-responder patients is a pivotal challenge for the future. In particular, finding parameters quantitatively describing perfusion grade, and then able to predict the sensitivity of the lesions to anti-angiogenic agents could help stratifying patients in terms of responsiveness before the beginning of the therapy itself. This would bring a great help in management of these patients.