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Cancers
Special Issues
Tumor Microenvironment Dynamics in Hepatocellular Carcinoma
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Tumor Microenvironment Dynamics in Hepatocellular Carcinoma

A special issue of Cancers (ISSN 2072-6694). This special issue belongs to the section "Tumor Microenvironment".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 September 2025 | Viewed by 1015

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Joseph Franses

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Medicine, Section of Hematology-Oncology, The University of Chicago Comprehensive Cancer Center, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
Interests: hepatocellular carcinoma; tumor microenvironment; metastasis; liquid biopsies; circulating tumor cells; immune therapy; angiogenesis; stroma
Dr. Adam Burgoyne

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center, University of California San Diego, San Diego, CA 92093, USA
Interests: gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST); gastrointestinal cancer; personalized medicine; hepatobiliary cancer; liver cancer; esophageal cancer; pancreatic cancer; stomach cancer; gallbladder cancer; appendix cancer; colon cancer; cancer immunotherapy

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to invite you to contribute to this Special Issue of Cancers. Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a lethal and increasingly common cause of cancer death worldwide. Although immune therapies have fundamentally improved the HCC treatment landscape, the determinants of response and resistance are not yet well defined. 

The HCC tumor microenvironment (TME) contains an ecosystem of cells that are recruited and co-opted by cancer cells to ultimately promote tumor growth and cancer spread. In addition to infiltrating lymphocytes and vascular endothelial cells, the major TME cell types targeted by modern medical treatment regimens, there are likely many additional cell–cell interactions that could be exploited for biomarker and therapeutic development. For example, subsets of myeloid cells, innate lymphoid cells, and fibroblasts have all recently been implicated as significant contributors to the immune-suppressive HCC TME. 

This Special Issue aims to provide researchers with the most up-to-date knowledge pertaining to the baseline and evolving cellular interactions within the HCC tumor microenvironment (TME) and how these interactions contribute to immune therapy response. Special emphasis will be placed on translational research leveraging clinical samples. 

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome to be submitted. Research areas may include, but are not limited to, the following: pre-treatment or on-treatment predictive biomarkers, crosstalk interactions within the TME, immune cell dynamics, novel immune therapy targets, and co-targets. 

I look forward to receiving your contributions. 

Dr. Joseph Franses
Dr. Adam Burgoyne
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Cancers is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • liver cancer
  • immune therapy
  • biomarkers
  • treatment resistance
  • cellular interactions

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

19 pages, 3644 KiB  
Article
Inter-Reader Agreement in LR-TRA Application and NLR Association in HCC Patients Treated with Endovascular vs. Ablative Procedures
by Davide Giuseppe Castiglione, Annamaria Porreca, Daniele Falsaperla, Federica Libra, Emanuele David, Roberta Maiuzzo, Mirko Domenico Castiglione, Cristina Mosconi, Stefano Palmucci, Pietro Valerio Foti, Antonio Basile and Massimo Galia
Cancers 2025, 17(3), 492; https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers17030492 - 1 Feb 2025
Viewed by 780
Abstract
Objectives: This study aimed to assess the performance of the LI-RADS tumor response algorithm in analyzing inter-reader agreement in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) treated with Microwave Ablation (MWA) and Transarterial Embolization (TAE) and the relationship between inter-reader agreement and Neutrophils to Lymphocytes [...] Read more.
Objectives: This study aimed to assess the performance of the LI-RADS tumor response algorithm in analyzing inter-reader agreement in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) treated with Microwave Ablation (MWA) and Transarterial Embolization (TAE) and the relationship between inter-reader agreement and Neutrophils to Lymphocytes ratio dynamic variations at different time points to explore how inflammation influences tumor response and its interpretation on imaging. Methods: A retrospective analysis was conducted on 78 HCC patients treated with MWA or TAE. Two independent radiologists evaluated pre- and post-treatment imaging and assigned categories according to the LR-TRA. Inter-reader agreement was assessed with a focus on subgroup analysis considering the different locoregional treatments. NLR values, measured at baseline (T0), 72 h (T1), and 30 days post-procedure (T2), were compared with patients with concordant and discordant LR-TRA assessments. This analysis aimed to identify any association between NLR dynamics and inter-reader agreement on treatment response. Results: The inter-reader agreement in the LR-TRA application was “substantial” in the cases of MWA treatment evaluation (κ = 0.65), and “moderate” in the cases of TAE treatment evaluation (κ = 0.51). The differences in inter-reader agreement were found to be expressions of different levels of NLR mean values in the different time frames evaluated. Three days after treatment, NLR increased significantly in TAE groups. At 30 days, NLR had returned close to baseline levels but with NLR persisting higher in the TAE group. There was a statistically significant difference in NLR between the “mismatch” group (those with discrepant LR-TRA readings) and the “match” group at 3 days (p = 0.004) and late evaluation (30+ days). Conclusions: This study has shown that NLR levels can predict inter-reader discrepancies in LR-TRA assessment and may be translated into different levels of difficult imaging interpretation. Combining LR-TRA and NLR is promising for a more comprehensive assessment of tumor response and inflammatory dynamics. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Tumor Microenvironment Dynamics in Hepatocellular Carcinoma)
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