Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC) Samples for Research

Bay Biosciences provides fresh frozen tissue samples, serum (sera), plasma, peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) biofluid samples and matching FFPE tumor tissue blocks from unique hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients for research.

Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC) Overview

Doctors define hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) as an important form of primary liver cancer. Specifically, liver cancers initially form in the liver.

Moreover, HCC usually develops in people with cirrhosis from preexisting chronic liver problems, such as alcoholic liver disease, fatty liver, or chronic viral hepatitis.

Furthermore, a 2022 article notes that HCC makes up around 90% of primary liver cancers. It is the fifth most common form of cancer worldwide and affects around 2–4% of people with cirrhosis.

Symptoms of HCC include:

Survival Rate for HCC

HCC has a 5-year survival rate of 18%.

Signs and Symptoms of Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC)

Hepatocellular carcinoma might not cause symptoms that people notice right away. In addition, this liver cancer most often affects people with liver scarring, called cirrhosis, which hepatitis B or hepatitis C infection causes.

Consequently, in these patients, the cancer symptoms might mirror the cirrhosis symptoms.

Further, if signs and symptoms of hepatocellular carcinoma develop, they may include:

  • Losing weight without trying.
  • Loss of appetite.
  • Upper abdominal pain.
  • A growth in the abdomen.
  • Yellowing of the skin and the whites of the eyes, known as jaundice.

Causes of Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC)

Researchers have not always been clear about what causes hepatocellular carcinoma. In fact, this cancer originates from a growth of cells in the liver. Furthermore, most people with this type of cancer have an ongoing liver condition, such as cirrhosis that hepatitis B or hepatitis C infection causes.

Hepatocellular carcinoma occurs when cells in the liver called hepatocytes develop changes in their DNA. Specifically, a cell’s DNA holds the instructions that direct the cell what to do. In healthy cells, the DNA instructs them to grow and multiply at a set rate.

Additional Causes

Moreover, the instructions tell the cells when to die. However, in cancer cells, the DNA changes provide different instructions. Consequently, the changes instruct the cancer cells to grow and multiply quickly. As a result, cancer cells can continue to live when healthy cells would die. This, in turn, results in too many cells.

Subsequently, the cancer cells create a mass called a tumor. Notably, the tumor can grow to invade and destroy healthy body tissue. Over time, cancer cells can break away and spread to other parts of the body. When this occurs, we refer to it as metastatic cancer.

Diagnosis of Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC)

To diagnose hepatocellular carcinoma, a healthcare professional might perform a physical exam and ask questions about your health history. Additionally, other tests and procedures might include imaging tests, blood tests, and removing some cells for testing.

Imaging tests, in particular, create pictures of the body. Furthermore, they can show the location and size of a hepatocellular carcinoma. Specifically, tests might include:

– Ultrasound
– Computerized tomography scan, also called CT scan
– Magnetic resonance imaging, also called MRI
– Positron emission tomography scan, also called PET scan.

Blood Tests

Blood tests can provide your healthcare team clues about what’s causing your symptoms. For example, these tests might include tests that measure your liver function.

In addition, blood tests also can detect proteins made by cancer cells. Specifically, we call these tests tumor marker tests.

Biopsy

A healthcare professional performs a biopsy to remove a sample of tissue for testing in a lab. Specifically, for hepatocellular carcinoma, the healthcare professional uses a needle to get the tissue sample. During a liver biopsy, a healthcare professional puts a needle through the skin and into the cancer.

Subsequently, the health professional uses the needle to draw out a sample of cells from the liver.

Then, the lab tests the sample to see if it is cancer. Additionally, other special tests provide more details about the cancer cells. Consequently, your healthcare team uses this information to create a treatment plan.

However, not everyone needs a biopsy to diagnose hepatocellular carcinoma. In some cases, healthcare teams make the diagnosis using the results of other tests.

Staging of Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC)

If doctors diagnose you with hepatocellular carcinoma, the next step is, therefore, to determine the cancer’s extent, called the stage.

Additionally, your healthcare team uses the cancer stage to help create your treatment plan.

Moreover, the stages of hepatocellular carcinoma use the number 0 and the letters A through D. Specifically, a stage 0 hepatocellular carcinoma is small and confined to the liver. Conversely, as the cancer grows larger or spreads beyond the area it started in, the stages go from A to D.

Risk Factors of Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC)

Factors that may increase the risk of hepatocellular carcinoma include:

  • Firstly, older age: Hepatocellular carcinoma is more common in older adults.
  • Additionally, infection with hepatitis B virus or hepatitis C virus. Ongoing or previous infection with the hepatitis B virus or hepatitis C virus increases the risk of hepatocellular carcinoma.
  • Moreover, cirrhosis. Cirrhosis is a progressive and irreversible condition that causes scar tissue to form in the liver, and it increases the chances of developing hepatocellular carcinoma.
  • Furthermore, certain inherited liver diseases. Some liver diseases that can run in families may increase the risk of hepatocellular carcinoma. Examples include hemochromatosis and Wilson’s disease.
  • In addition, excess fat in the liver. Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, also called metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease, happens when fat builds up in the liver. Consequently, people with this condition are at an increased risk of hepatocellular carcinoma.
  • Likewise, diabetes. People with this blood sugar condition have a greater risk of hepatocellular carcinoma than those who don’t have diabetes.
  • Finally, obesity. People with obesity have a higher risk of cirrhosis and excess fat in the liver; thus, these conditions increase the risk of hepatocellular carcinoma.

Additional Risk Factors

  • Exposure to aflatoxins. Aflatoxins are poisons produced by molds that grow on crops that are stored poorly. Specifically, crops such as grains and nuts can become contaminated with aflatoxins, which can ultimately end up in foods made from these products.
  • Furthermore, excessive alcohol consumption is another significant risk factor. Consuming more than a moderate amount of alcohol daily over many years can lead to irreversible liver damage and, consequently, increase the risk of hepatocellular carcinoma.
  • In addition, smoking cigarettes poses yet another risk. People who smoke cigarettes are, therefore, at an increased risk of hepatocellular carcinoma.

Treatment of Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC)

Surgeons may start treatment for hepatocellular carcinoma by removing part of the liver, including the cancer, or performing a transplant of the whole liver. Specifically, surgery options include:

First, surgeons may perform surgery to remove the cancer. For instance, a partial hepatectomy is used for people whose cancer is in one part of the liver. In this case, this surgery removes the cancer and some healthy tissue around it.

However, whether this is an option for you depends on the location of your cancer within the liver, how well your liver functions, and your overall health.

Alternatively, surgeons may perform liver transplant surgery. In some cases, they combine surgery to remove the cancer with a liver transplant.

During this procedure, a surgeon removes the cancer and all of the liver, then puts a healthy liver from a donor into the body. Moreover, a liver transplant may be an option for otherwise healthy people whose cancer hasn’t spread beyond the liver.

Finally, other treatments may help treat the cancer while waiting for a transplant.

Other Liver Treatment Procedures

Several procedures can help treat hepatocellular carcinoma, especially for individuals who cannot undergo surgery to remove the cancer. Specifically, these liver treatments include:

First, Radiofrequency Ablation: This procedure uses electric current and heat to damage cancer cells. In this process, a healthcare professional inserts small needles into the tumor, delivering high temperatures that destroy the cancer cells.

Additionally, Cryoablation: In this procedure, cold temperatures are used to harm cancer cells. Here, a healthcare professional places small needles into the tumor, which deliver extreme cold to the cancer cells, causing them to freeze and die.

Moreover, Chemoembolization: This technique administers chemotherapy directly to the tumor while simultaneously blocking blood flow to it. By doing so, the treatment may shrink the cancer, slow its growth, or halt its progression.

Furthermore, Radioembolization: This procedure involves using tiny beads that contain radiation. Specifically, the healthcare team injects these beads into a blood vessel leading to the liver, allowing the radiation to target the cancer directly.

Lastly, Radiation Therapy: This treatment employs powerful energy beams, such as X-rays or protons, to target and destroy cancer cells in the liver.

Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy is a cancer treatment that enhances the body’s immune system to target and destroy cancer cells. In fact, the immune system typically fights off diseases by attacking harmful germs and cells; however, cancer cells often evade detection. Therefore, immunotherapy helps immune cells recognize and eliminate these cancer cells.

Moreover, this treatment may be administered after surgery to eliminate any remaining cancer cells. For instance, for individuals with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma that cannot be surgically removed, immunotherapy may serve as a viable option.

Targeted Therapy

Targeted therapy involves using medications that specifically attack certain chemicals within cancer cells. Consequently, by blocking these chemicals, targeted treatments can induce cancer cell death.

Similarly, targeted therapy may be used post-surgery to eradicate any residual cancer cells. In addition, it can also be an option for patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma that is inoperable.

Palliative Care

Palliative care is a specialized form of healthcare designed to improve comfort and quality of life for individuals with serious illnesses, including cancer. Specifically, this type of care focuses on relieving pain and other symptoms, and it is provided by a healthcare team that may include doctors, nurses, and other trained professionals.

Biospecimens

Bay Biosciences is a global leader in providing researchers with high quality, clinical grade, fully characterized human tissue samples, bio-specimens, and human bio-fluid collections.

Samples available include cancer (tumor) tissue, cancer serum, cancer plasma, cancer, peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC). and human tissue samples from most other therapeutic areas and diseases.

Bay Biosciences maintains and manages its own biorepository, the human tissue bank (biobank) consisting of thousands of diseased samples (specimens) and from normal healthy donors available in all formats and types.

In fact, our biobank procures and stores fully consented, de-identified and institutional review boards (IRB) approved human tissue samples and matched controls.

Also, all our human tissue collections, human specimens and human bio-fluids are provided with detailed, samples associated patient’s clinical data.

So this critical patient’s clinical data includes information relating to their past and current disease, treatment history, lifestyle choices, biomarkers, and genetic information.

Additionally, patient’s data is extremely valuable for researchers and is used to help identify new effective treatments (drug discovery & development) in oncology, and other therapeutic areas and diseases.

Bay Biosciences banks wide variety of human tissue samples and biological samples, including cryogenically preserved at – 80°C.

For example fresh frozen tissue samples, tumor tissue samples, formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE), tissue slides, with matching human bio-fluids, whole blood and blood-derived products such as serum, plasma and PBMC.

Bay Biosciences is a global leader in collecting and providing human tissue samples according to the specified requirements and customized, tailor-made collection protocols.

Please contact us anytime to discuss your special research projects and customized human tissue sample requirements.

Types of Biospecimens

Bay Biosciences provides human tissue samples (human specimens) from diseased and normal healthy donors which includes:

Moreover, we can also procure most human bio-specimens, special collections and requests for human samples that are difficult to find. All our human tissue samples are procured through IRB-approved clinical protocols and procedures.

In addition to the standard processing protocols, Bay Biosciences can also provide human plasma, serum, and PBMC bio-fluid samples using custom processing protocols; you buy donor-specific collections in higher volumes and specified sample aliquots from us.

Bay Biosciences also provides human samples from normal healthy donors; volunteers, for controls and clinical research, contact us Now.

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