With the development of new advances in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) management and noninvasive radiological techniques, high‐risk patient groups such as those with hepatitis virus are closely monitored. HCC is increasingly diagnosed early, and treatment may be successful. In spite of this progress, most patients who undergo a hepatectomy will eventually relapse, and the outcomes of HCC patients remain unsatisfactory. In our study, we aimed to identify potential gene biomarkers based on RNA sequencing data to predict and improve HCC patient survival. The gene expression data and clinical information were acquired from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. A total of 339 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were obtained between the HCC (n = 374) and normal tissues (n = 50). Four genes (CENPA, SPP1, MAGEB6 and HOXD9) were screened by univariate, Lasso and multivariate Cox regression analyses to develop the prognostic model. Further analysis revealed the independent prognostic capacity of the prognostic model in relation to other clinical characteristics. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis confirmed the good performance of the prognostic model. Then, the prognostic model and the expression levels of the four genes were validated using the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) dataset. A nomogram comprising the prognostic model to predict the overall survival was established, and internal validation in the TCGA cohort was performed. The predictive model and the nomogram will enable patients with HCC to be more accurately managed in trials testing new drugs and in clinical practice.

Intraductal papillary neoplasm of the bile duct (IPNB) is a variant of bile duct carcinoma that is characterized by intraductal growth and better outcomes compared with common cholangiocarcinoma. IPNBs are mainly found in patients from Far Eastern areas, where hepatolithiasis and clonorchiasis are endemic. According to the immunohistochemical profiles of the mucin core proteins, IPNBs are classified into four types: pancreaticobiliary, intestinal, gastric, and oncocytic. Approximately 40%-80% of IPNBs contain a component of invasive carcinoma or tubular or mucinous adenocarcinoma, suggesting that IPNB is a disease with high potential for malignancy. It is difficult to make an accurate preoperative diagnosis because of IPNB's low incidence and the lack of specificity in its clinical manifestation. The most common abnormal preoperative imaging findings of IPNB are intraductal masses and the involvement of bile duct dilation. Simultaneous proximal and distal bile duct dilation can be detected in some cases, which has diagnostic significance. Cholangiography and cholangioscopy are needed to confirm the pathology and demonstrate the extent of the lesions. However, pathologic diagnosis by biopsy cannot reflect the actual stage in many cases because different foci may be of different stages and because mixed pathologic findings may exist in the same lesion. Surgical resection is the major treatment. Systematic cholangioscopy with staged biopsies and frozen sections is recommended during resection to ensure that no minor tumors are left and that curative resection is achieved. Staging, histologic subtype, curative resection and lymph node metastasis are factors affecting long-term survival.

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been attracting immense research interests. However, only a handful of lncRNAs had been thoroughly characterized. They were involved in fundamental cellular processes including regulation of gene expression at epigenetics as well as tumorogenesis. In this paper, we give a systematic and comprehensive review of existing literature about lncRNA involvement in hepatocellular carcinoma. This review exhibited that lncRNAs played important roles in tumorigenesis and subsequent prognosis and metastasis of hepatocellular carcinoma and elucidated the role of some specific lncRNAs such as MALAT1 and HOTAIR in the pathophysiology of hepatocellular carcinoma and their potential of being therapeutic targets.