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Hepatocellular cancer, a leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide, is emerging more prominently in the U.S. as a result of rising hepatitis C infection rates. This cancer usually presents at an advanced stage and is accompanied by concurrent cirrhotic liver disease; consequently, only a minority of patients can receive potentially curative surgical resection or liver transplantation. In addition, efforts to optimize therapy for patients are limited by the lack of biomarkers that might help predict prognosis and response to treatment.
To identify molecular indicators that could help guide liver cancer treatment, investigators in China examined microRNAs — noncoding RNAs that regulate expression of an array of genes and that have been …