{"title":"Transcriptomic signature in advanced hepatocellular carcinoma tissue to predict combination immunotherapy response: Editorial on \"Genomic biomarkers to predict response to atezolizumab plus bevacizumab immunotherapy in hepatocellular carcinoma: Insights from the IMbrave150 trial\".","authors":"Hiroaki Kanzaki, Yujin Hoshida","doi":"10.3350/cmh.2024.0726","DOIUrl":"10.3350/cmh.2024.0726","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":10275,"journal":{"name":"Clinical and Molecular Hepatology","volume":" ","pages":"308-310"},"PeriodicalIF":14.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11791608/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142104911","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Unveiling the distinctive gut microbiota and metabolites in liver cirrhosis and its complications: Novel diagnostic biomarkers: Editorial on \"Gut microbiome and metabolome signatures in liver cirrhosis-related complications\".","authors":"Soon Kyu Lee, Jong Young Choi","doi":"10.3350/cmh.2024.0716","DOIUrl":"10.3350/cmh.2024.0716","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":10275,"journal":{"name":"Clinical and Molecular Hepatology","volume":" ","pages":"301-303"},"PeriodicalIF":14.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11791593/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142104912","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Understanding the impact on digestive disease in the post-COVID-19 condition: Editorial on \"Long-term gastrointestinal and hepatobiliary outcomes of COVID-19: A multinational population-based cohort study from South Korea, Japan, and the UK\".","authors":"Yang-Hyun Baek","doi":"10.3350/cmh.2024.0856","DOIUrl":"10.3350/cmh.2024.0856","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":10275,"journal":{"name":"Clinical and Molecular Hepatology","volume":" ","pages":"319-322"},"PeriodicalIF":14.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11791587/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142380136","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Reply to correspondence on \"Long-term gastrointestinal and hepatobiliary outcomes of COVID-19: A multinational population-based cohort study from South Korea, Japan, and the UK\".","authors":"Yang-Hyun Baek","doi":"10.3350/cmh.2024.0966","DOIUrl":"10.3350/cmh.2024.0966","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":10275,"journal":{"name":"Clinical and Molecular Hepatology","volume":" ","pages":"e123-e124"},"PeriodicalIF":14.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11791604/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142582173","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Correspondence to letter to the editor 1 on \"Conventional and machine learning-based risk scores for patients with early-stage hepatocellular carcinoma\".","authors":"Chun-Ting Ho, Elise Chia-Hui Tan, Chien-Wei Su","doi":"10.3350/cmh.2024.0999","DOIUrl":"10.3350/cmh.2024.0999","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":10275,"journal":{"name":"Clinical and Molecular Hepatology","volume":" ","pages":"e96-e97"},"PeriodicalIF":14.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11791574/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142615969","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Correspondence to editorial on \"Development and validation of a stromal-immune signature to predict prognosis in intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma\".","authors":"Yu-Hang Ye, Shao-Lai Zhou","doi":"10.3350/cmh.2024.0998","DOIUrl":"10.3350/cmh.2024.0998","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":10275,"journal":{"name":"Clinical and Molecular Hepatology","volume":" ","pages":"e90-e92"},"PeriodicalIF":14.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11791607/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142616035","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Hard-to-treat autoimmune hepatitis and primary biliary cholangitis: The dawn of a new era of pharmacological treatment.","authors":"Atsumasa Komori, Yuki Kugiyama","doi":"10.3350/cmh.2024.0821","DOIUrl":"10.3350/cmh.2024.0821","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Patients with hard-to-treat autoimmune hepatitis (AIH) or primary biliary cholangitis (PBC) are defined a posteriori as those who do not show a sufficient response or are intolerant to pharmacological treatments, thus not achieving biochemical surrogate endpoints that are associated with long-term liver-related-event-free survival. The absence of a recently harmonized definition of 'complete biochemical response within 6 months (CBR≤6M)', which is defined as the normalization of serum transaminase and IgG levels below the upper limit of normal at ≤6 months after treatment initiation, is regarded as hard-to-treat AIH. The implementation of CBR≤6M, in turn, has been facilitating clinical trials, e.g., between azathioprine and mycophenolate mofetil, to reconsider appropriate first-line steroid sparing agents, leading to a reduction in the number of hard-to-treat AIH cases. Regarding PBC, one of the disseminated definitions of hard-to-treat patients is the absence of POISE criteria, which are evaluated at 12 months with serum alkaline phosphatase and bilirubin levels, after the introduction of ursodeoxycholic acid. Hard-to-treat PBC not meeting the POISE criteria has very recently been the target population for the U.S. FDA-approved second-line drugs, elafibranor and seladelpar. In future pharmacological treatment of AIH and PBC, the primary objective for AIH is likely to focus on lowering the number of hard-to-treat patients with personalized steroid sparing treatment regimens. A challenging goal in PBC treatment is the further optimization of treatment surrogate endpoints, even to the stricter alkaline phosphatase normalization, with which an indication of second- or later-line drugs might be expanded, but could ultimately lengthen patients' long-term survival.</p>","PeriodicalId":10275,"journal":{"name":"Clinical and Molecular Hepatology","volume":" ","pages":"90-104"},"PeriodicalIF":14.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11791546/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142616040","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Identification of KCTD17 as a Ras stabilizer in hepatocellular carcinoma: Editorial on \"KCTD17-mediated Ras stabilization promotes hepatocellular carcinoma progression\".","authors":"Rainbow Wing Hei Leung, Terence Kin Wah Lee","doi":"10.3350/cmh.2024.0718","DOIUrl":"10.3350/cmh.2024.0718","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":10275,"journal":{"name":"Clinical and Molecular Hepatology","volume":" ","pages":"304-307"},"PeriodicalIF":14.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11791552/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142104907","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Woo Hyun Paik, Joo Kyung Park, Moon Jae Chung, Gunn Huh, Ce Hwan Park, Sang Hyub Lee, Heon Se Jeong, Hee Jin Kim, Do Hyun Park
{"title":"Safety and efficacy of HK-660S in patients with primary sclerosing cholangitis: A randomized double-blind phase 2a trial.","authors":"Woo Hyun Paik, Joo Kyung Park, Moon Jae Chung, Gunn Huh, Ce Hwan Park, Sang Hyub Lee, Heon Se Jeong, Hee Jin Kim, Do Hyun Park","doi":"10.3350/cmh.2024.0629","DOIUrl":"10.3350/cmh.2024.0629","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background/aims: </strong>A clinical unmet need persists for medications capable of modulating the progression of primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC). This study aimed to assess the clinical feasibility of HK-660S (beta-lapachone) in PSC.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>In this multicenter, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-group phase 2 trial, participants were assigned in a 2:1 ratio to receive either 100 mg of HK-660S or a placebo twice daily for 12 weeks. The primary outcomes were the reduction in serum alkaline phosphatase (ALP) levels and the percentage of participants showing improvements in PSC severity, as determined by magnetic resonance cholangiopancreatography with the Anali score. Secondary endpoints included changes in liver stiffness and adverse events.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>The analysis included 21 patients, 15 receiving HK-660S, and six receiving a placebo. Improvements in the Anali score were observed in 13.3% of the HK-660S group, with no improvements in the placebo group. HK-660S treatment resulted in a 15.2% reduction in mean ALP levels, compared to a 6.6% reduction in the placebo group. A stratified ad-hoc analysis based on baseline ALP levels showed a statistically significant response in the HK-660S group among those with ALP levels greater than twice the upper limit of normal, with a 50% responder rate (p=0.05). Additionally, 26.7% of the HK-660S group showed improvements in the enhanced liver fibrosis score, with no improvements in the placebo group. HK-660S was generally well tolerated.</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>HK-660S is well tolerated among patients with PSC and may improve bile duct strictures, decrease serum ALP levels, and reduce liver fibrosis (cris.nih.go.kr, Number KCT0006590).</p>","PeriodicalId":10275,"journal":{"name":"Clinical and Molecular Hepatology","volume":" ","pages":"119-130"},"PeriodicalIF":14.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11791568/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142307245","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Carlos Jose Pirola, Maria Silvina Landa, Mariano Schuman, Silvia Inés García, Adrian Salatino, Silvia Sookoian
{"title":"Metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease exhibits sex-specific microbial heterogeneity within intestinal compartments.","authors":"Carlos Jose Pirola, Maria Silvina Landa, Mariano Schuman, Silvia Inés García, Adrian Salatino, Silvia Sookoian","doi":"10.3350/cmh.2024.0359","DOIUrl":"10.3350/cmh.2024.0359","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background/aims: </strong>Evidence suggests that the gastrointestinal microbiome plays a significant role in the biology of metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD). However, it remains unclear whether disparities in the gut microbiome across intestinal tissular compartments between the sexes lead to MASLD pathogenesis.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>Sex-specific analyses of microbiome composition in two anatomically distinct regions of the gut, the small intestine and colon, were performed using an experimental model of MASLD. The study involved male and female spontaneously hypertensive rats and the Wistar-Kyoto control rat strain, which were fed either a standard chow diet or a high-fat diet for 12 weeks to induce MASLD (12 rats per group). High-throughput 16S sequencing was used for microbiome analysis.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>There were significant differences in the overall microbiome composition of male and female rats with MASLD, including variations in topographical gut regions. The beta diversity of the jejunal and colon microbiomes was higher in female rats than in male rats (PERMANOVA p-value=0.001). Sex-specific analysis and discriminant features using LEfSe showed considerable variation in bacterial abundance, along with distinct functional properties, in the jejunum and colon of animals with MASLD. Significantly elevated levels of lipopolysaccharide and protein expression of Toll-like receptor 4 were observed in the livers of male rats with MASLD compared with their female counterparts.</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>This study uncovered sexual dimorphism in the gut microbiome of MASLD and identified microbial heterogeneity within intestinal compartments. Insights into sex-specific variations in gut microbiome composition could facilitate customised treatment strategies.</p>","PeriodicalId":10275,"journal":{"name":"Clinical and Molecular Hepatology","volume":" ","pages":"179-195"},"PeriodicalIF":14.0,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11791572/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142399578","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}