Validation of Two Prognostic Gene Scores in Patients Undergoing Liver Resection for Hepatocellular Carcinoma.

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Several prognostic gene signatures have been proposed as predictors of the prognosis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), yet none are implemented in the clinical setting. We aimed to validate two gene scores previously derived from European cohorts.

METHODS

The patients who underwent liver resection for HCC at Copenhagen University Hospital, Rigshospitalet from 2014 to 2018 were included. RNA sequencing determined the expression of genes in the '' () and ' (). Univariable Cox regression assessed associations with overall and disease-free survival. These parameters were also analyzed in the The Cancer Genome Atlas Liver Hepatocellular Carcinoma (TCGA-LIHC) (n = 359) and National Institute of Health (NIH) (n = 178) cohorts.

RESULTS

Among 51 patients (88% male), 59% had no underlying liver disease and 25% had cirrhosis. No individual genes were significantly associated with overall survival in the Danish cohort. In the TCGA-LIHC cohort, was linked to better overall survival, and in the NIH cohort, high expression of was associated with poorer overall survival. In the TCGA-LIHC cohort, , , and were associated with poorer overall survival, while was linked to better overall survival. No genes were associated with disease-free survival.

CONCLUSION

Few individual genes significantly predicted survival in the larger cohorts, and none in the Danish cohort. However, the clinical implication of this needs further investigation.