Hepatocellular carcinoma: screening and staging.

Active screening of patients at risk for HCC has led to the identification of early HCCs that are amenable to treatment with a high rate of cure. This requires high-quality ultrasound examinations at 6-month intervals. If widely applied, screening has the potential to substantially reduce the mortality from this disease. The application of the Barcelona Cancer of the Liver Clinic (BCLC) staging system should standardize assessment of prognosis and determination of the most effective treatments for each stage. With new molecular targeted agents coming, it is critical that studies are performed in patients stratified by stage into homogeneous groups. Because it is linked with therapy, the BCLC is ideally suited to this purpose.