Anti-platelet therapy prevents the progression of fatty liver to liver cancer in animal models
A study published in the journal Nature Medicine proposes a paradigm shift in the approach to steatohepatitis, the most advanced degree of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, one of the diseases that caused the increase in the incidence of cases of liver cancer.
A study published in the journal Nature Medicine proposes a paradigm shift in the approach to steatohepatitis, the most advanced degree of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, one of the diseases that caused the increase in the incidence of cases of liver cancer.
So far, the inflammation of the liver was considered to be the key process for the progress of this disease. The study shows this inflammatory process is not as important as the one related to the accumulation and activation of platelets. If this process is inhibited, steatohepatitis can be prevented from progressing to liver cancer.
The study has been coordinated by Mathias Heikenwälder, researcher at the Cancer Research Center of Heidelberg, and Josep M. Llovet, head of the IDIBAPS Translational Research Group in Hepatic Oncology, ICREA professor, professor at the University of Barcelona, and director of the Liver Cancer Program at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (New York), and Roser Pinyol, researcher from the same IDIBAPS group.
This article is framed within the European HEP-CAR project, funded by the Horizon 2020 program. Its objective is to identify the molecular mechanisms that have a direct impact on the development of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).
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