Background & Aims The metabolic pathway disturbances associated with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remain unsatisfactorily characterized. Determination of the metabolic alterations associated with the presence of HCC can improve our understanding of the pathophysiology of this cancer and may provide opportunities for improved disease monitoring of patients at risk for HCC development. To characterize the global metabolic alterations associated with HCC arising from hepatitis C (HCV)-associated cirrhosis using an integrated non-targeted metabolomics methodology employing both gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) and ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography/electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC/MS-MS). Methods The global serum metabolomes of 30 HCC patients, 27 hepatitis C cirrhosis disease controls and 30 healthy volunteers were characterized using a metabolomics approach that combined two metabolomics platforms, GC/MS and UPLC/MS-MS. Random forest, multivariate statistics and receiver operator characteristic analysis were performed to identify the most significantly altered metabolites in HCC patients vs. HCV-cirrhosis controls and which therefore exhibited a close association with the presence of HCC. Results Elevated 12-hydroxyeicosatetraenoic acid (12-HETE), 15-HETE, sphingosine, γ-glutamyl oxidative stress-associated metabolites, xanthine, amino acids serine, glycine and aspartate, and a-cylcarnitines were strongly associated with the presence of HCC. Elevations in bile acids and dicarboxylic acids were highly correlated with cirrhosis. Conclusions Integrated metabolomic profiling through GC/MS and UPLC/MS-MS identified global metabolic disturbances in HCC and HCV-cirrhosis. Aberrant amino acid biosynthesis, cell turnover regulation, reactive oxygen species neutralization and eicosanoid pathways may be hallmarks of HCC. Aberrant dicarboxylic acid metabolism, enhanced bile acid metabolism and elevations in fibrinogen cleavage peptides may be signatures of cirrhosis.

We elucidate major pathways of hepatocarcinogenesis and accurate diagnostic metabolomic biomarkers of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) identified by contemporary HCC metabolomics studies, and delineate a model HCC metabolomics study design. A literature search was carried out on Pubmed for HCC metabolomics articles published in English. All relevant articles were accessed in full text. Major search terms included “HCC”, “metabolomics”, “metabolomics”, “metabonomic” and “biomarkers”. We extracted clinical and demographic data on all patients and consolidated the lead candidate biomarkers, pathways, and diagnostic performance of metabolomic expression patterns reported by all studies in tables. Where reported, we also extracted and summarized the metabolites and pathways most highly associated with the development of cirrhosis in table format. Pathways of lysophospholipid, sphingolipid, bile acid, amino acid, and reactive oxygen species metabolism were most consistently associated with HCC in the cited works. Several studies also elucidate metabolic alterations strongly associated with cirrhosis, with γ-glutamyl peptides, bile acids, and dicarboxylic acids exhibiting the highest capacity for stratifying cirrhosis patients from appropriately matched controls. Collectively, global metabolomic profiles of the referenced works exhibit a promising diagnostic capacity for HCC at a capacity greater than that of conventional diagnostic biomarker alpha-fetoprotein. Metabolomics is a powerful strategy for identifying global metabolic signatures that exhibit potential to be leveraged toward the screening, diagnosis, and management of HCC. A streamlined study design and patient matching methodology may improve concordance among metabolomic datasets in future works.

Abstract. In a previous study, we showed that the level of soluble CD25 (sCD25) was elevated in a small series of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). In the present study, we determined the capacity of serum levels of sCD25 to detect the presence and the early stage of HCC using a larger cohort of HCC patients and evaluated the correlation between sCD25 level and tumor burden. Serum levels of sCD25 were quantified using ELISA in patients with HCC (n=145), controls with advanced fibrosis (n=61) and healthy control subjects (n=30). The levels of sCD25 in patients with HCC (median, 6,955 pg/ml) were significantly higher than those in cirrhosis-only patients (4,310 pg/ml; P<0.0001). At a cut-off value of 2,180 pg/ml, sCD25 had a sensitivity of 92.3% and a specificity of 37.7% in detecting HCC presence [area under the curve (AUC) of 0.685; P<0.0001]. By comparison, α-fetoprotein (AFP) had a sensitivity of 53.8% and a specificity of 86.8% at a cut-off value of 32.8 ng/ml (AUC=0.755; P<0.0001) for HCC presence detection. For early HCC, the sensitivity of sCD25 was 89.6% and its specificity was 39.3% (AUC=0.630; P<0.0001) at a cut-off value of 2,859 pg/ml, while AFP had a sensitivity of 41.7% and a specificity of 82.6% at a cut-off value of 20.6 ng/ml (AUC=0.630; P=0.0257). We also found a significant positive correlation between serum levels of sCD25 and tumor stage. In the present study study, sCD25 was more effective than AFP at detecting the presence and early stages of HCC. This immune factor may hold promise as a novel predictive marker of HCC presence and may be useful in distinguishing early HCC from advanced cirrhosis, currently areas of global unmet need.

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Background: Extracellular volume fraction (ECV), measured with contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (CE-MRI), has been utilized to study myocardial fibrosis but its role in peripheral artery disease (PAD) remains unknown. We hypothesized that T1-mapping and ECV differ between PAD patients and matched-controls. Methods and Results: A total of 37 individuals (18 PAD, 19 controls) underwent 3.0T CE-MRI at the mid-calf. T1-mapping was done before and after gadolinium contrast with a motion corrected Modified Look Locker Inversion Recovery (MOLLI) pulse sequence. T1 values were calculated with a 3-parameter Levenberg-Marquardt curve fitting algorithm. T1-maps were quantified in 5 calf muscle compartments (anterior [AM], lateral [LM], and deep posterior [DM] muscle groups; soleus [SM], and gastrocnemius [GM] muscles). Averaged peak blood pool T1 values were obtained from the posterior (PT) and anterior tibialis (AT); and peroneal artery (PE). PAD ECV was calculated for each muscle group. T1 values and ECV are heterogeneous across calf muscle compartments. Native peak T1 values of the AM, LM, and DM were significantly higher in PAD patients compared to controls (all p<0.028). ECV of the AM and SM were significantly higher in PAD patients compared to controls (AM: 26.4% (21.2, 31.6) vs. 17.3% (10.2, 25.1), p=0.046; SM: 22.7% (19.5, 27.8) vs. 13.8% (10.2, 19.1), p=0.020). Conclusions: Native peak T1 values and ECV fractions of several calf muscle compartments are higher in PAD patients compared with matched-controls. These data suggest a potential utility of ECV to noninvasively determine skeletal muscle fibrosis in PAD.