Liver cancer ranks sixth among the most commonly diagnosed malignancies
and 90% of liver cancer cases are of Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Treatment
options for HCC include resection, radiotherapy, and systemic therapies with
chemotherapeutic drugs. The late diagnosis of HCC prevents successful treatment by
surgical resection. Further, conventional treatment modalities such as chemotherapy
and radiotherapy are ineffective in all patients as tumors are heterogeneous. The
heterogeneous nature of tumors enables them to have genetic variations and express
specific proteins in different patients. This inherent variability of cancer creates the
need to move to a growing field of medicine, i.e., precision/personalized medicine.
Precision medicine is based on complementing the molecular profile of a patient to a
targeted therapy. In clinical practice, the transition from a stage-based approach to a
targeted therapy-based approach is necessary for determining the most appropriate
treatment plan for a patient. The clinical outcomes for patients could be improved on a
large scale if the discoveries in tumour biology are applied efficiently in clinics. This
chapter discusses the research on precision medicine for improving treatment outcomes
in HCC patients, especially advanced cancers. It also includes the clinical studies of
novel therapeutics used for the targeted therapy of advanced liver cancer patients.
Concisely, we summarize the recent studies on the applications of precision and
personalized medicine.
Keywords: Cancer management, Clinical trials, Hepatocellular carcinoma, Precision/personalised medicine, Targeted therapy.
