Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Hepatol. Sep 28, 2016; 8(27): 1119-1127
Published online Sep 28, 2016. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v8.i27.1119
Molecular pathological epidemiology in diabetes mellitus and risk of hepatocellular carcinoma
Chun Gao
Chun Gao, Department of Gastroenterology, China-Japan Friendship Hospital, Ministry of Health, Beijing 100029, China
Author contributions: Gao C conceived the topic, performed research, retrieved concerned literatures and wrote the paper.
Supported by Beijing NOVA Programme of Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission, No. Z13110.7000413067.
Conflict-of-interest statement: No conflict of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Chun Gao, MD, Department of Gastroenterology, China-Japan Friendship Hospital, Ministry of Health, No. 2 Yinghua East Road, Beijing 100029, China. gaochun@bjmu.edu.cn
Telephone: +86-10-84205313 Fax: +86-10-64481924
Received: April 2, 2016
Peer-review started: April 7, 2016
First decision: June 6, 2016
Revised: June 28, 2016
Accepted: August 6, 2016
Article in press: August 8, 2016
Published online: September 28, 2016
Abstract

Molecular pathological epidemiology (MPE) is a multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary study field, which has emerged as an integrated approach of molecular pathology and epidemiology, and investigates the relationship between exogenous and endogenous exposure factors, tumor molecular signatures, and tumor initiation, progression, and response to treatment. Molecular epidemiology broadly encompasses MPE and conventional-type molecular epidemiology. Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the third most common cause of cancer-associated death worldwide and remains as a major public health challenge. Over the past few decades, a number of epidemiological studies have demonstrated that diabetes mellitus (DM) is an established independent risk factor for HCC. However, how DM affects the occurrence and development of HCC remains as yet unclearly understood. MPE may be a promising approach to investigate the molecular mechanisms of carcinogenesis of DM in HCC, and provide some useful insights for this pathological process, although a few challenges must be overcome. This review highlights the recent advances in this field, including: (1) introduction of MPE; (2) HCC, risk factors, and DM as an established independent risk factor for HCC; (3) molecular pathology, molecular epidemiology, and MPE in DM and HCC; and (4) MPE studies in DM and risk of HCC. More MPE studies are expected to be performed in future and I believe that this field can provide some very important insights on the molecular mechanisms, diagnosis, personalized prevention and treatment for DM and risk of HCC.

Keywords: Diabetes mellitus, Molecular pathological epidemiology, Hepatocellular carcinoma, Risk factor, Molecular mechanism

Core tip: Diabetes mellitus (DM) is an established independent risk factor for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC); however, how DM affects the occurrence and development of HCC remains as yet unclearly understood. Molecular pathological epidemiology (MPE) may be a promising approach to investigate the molecular mechanisms of carcinogenesis of DM in HCC, and provide some useful insights for this pathological process. This review highlights the recent advances in this field and more MPE studies are expected to be performed for this question in future.