[905] Transplantation and Hepatology
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the fifth most frequent cancer in men and the ninth most frequent cancer in women (http://gco.iarc.fr/today/home). It is associated with a high mortality, representing the fourth cause of cancer-related death worldwide in 2018. Until now, the incidence of HCC has been matching the one of HCV, but this observation is changing rapidly as the newly available direct acting antiviral drugs can now efficiently treat HCV. In parallel, Western countries show a rapidly increasing incidence of obesity, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and non-alcoholic steato-hepatitis (NASH) and these diseases are expected to soon become the leading cause of HCC.
Of all treatment options and for appropriate candidates, liver transplantation offers the best outcome. Our laboratory aims to explore the mechanisms and possible treatments to improve these outcomes.
Different fields of investigations are developed in animal models
- The impact of maternal NAFLD on the gut microbiota, metabolism, and de novo HCC in the offspring
- The exploration of porto-systemic vein shunting as modulators of portal hypertension, liver diseases and HCC
- The assessment of anti-cancer immunity in the NASH-altered liver microenvironment and the impact of immune check-point inhibitors
- The generation of chimeric livers in order to increase the pool of organs for transplantation
Our group is also involved in clinical research, where our investigations mainly focus on the establishment of novel models predicting the outcome of liver transplantation for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (in order to improve patient selection), as well on the impact of liver graft quality on the risk of post-transplant liver cancer recurrence.