Journal of Liver Cancer

Lee, Joo Ho

2 Articles

A Case of Management for Advanced Hepatocellular Carcinoma with Extrahepatic Metastasis by Autologous Natural Killer Cells Combined with Immune Checkpoint Inhibitor: Woo, Ara , Kim, Eun Ju , Shin, Sun Young , Jeon, Hong Jae , Park, Hana , Chon, Young Eun , Lee, Yun Bin , Hwang, Seong Gyu , Rim, Kyu Sung , Lee, Joo Ho; J Liver Cancer. 2018;18(1):67-74. Published online March 31, 2018; DOI: https://doi.org/10.17998/jlc.18.1.67

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Abstract PDF: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) has extremely poor prognosis. Immunotherapy has emerged as a new treatment for a number of cancers. Adoptive immunotherapy is one of the important cancer immunotherapy, which relies on the various lymphocytes including cytotoxic T lymphocytes, natural killer (NK) and cytokine induced killer cells. Also, there has been advance in techniques of NK cell activation to more effectively kill the cancer cells. Of note, recently the blocking antibodies targeting programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) have shown promising results in diverse cancers including HCC. We report our recent experience of a patient accompanying advanced HCC with extrahepatic metastases. Disease progression had occurred after sorafenib administration, while the patient showed local tumor control and tumor marker decrease by NK cell immunotherapy combined with PD-1 inhibitor therapy. Though, there was no definite survival advantage due to impaired liver function, which might be caused by treatment related toxicities as well as cancer progression.

Methionine Adenosyltransferase 1: A Proteomic Surrogate Marker of Early Hepatocellular Carcinoma in Cirrhotic Patients: Lee, Joo Ho , Jun, Mi Jung , Shim, Ju Hyun , Song, Gi Won , Tak, Eunyoung , Oh, Bora , Yu, Eunsil , Choi, Sang Woon , An, Jihyun , Lee, Danbi , Kim, Kang Mo , Lim, Young Suk , Lee, Han Chu , Chung, Young Hwa , Lee, Yung Sang; J Liver Cancer. 2018;18(1):33-43. Published online March 31, 2018; DOI: https://doi.org/10.17998/jlc.18.1.33

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Abstract PDF: Background/Aim
s: Because there is a lack of effective biomarkers, we aimed to discover proteomic candidate markers for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in cirrhotic patients at the highest-risk of HCC, and to validate the markers. Methods: We collected tumor tissue from 5 cirrhotics with HCC, and from 5 cirrhotics without HCC, who underwent liver resection or transplantation. These tissue samples were analyzed by 2-dimensional difference gel electrophoresis coupled with matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS), and potential markers were validated at the transcriptional and translational levels. We also performed western blot assays using other blood samples from 10 cirrhotics with HCC and 10 without HCC. Results: Among the 66 distinguishable spots on 2-D gel images, we identified 15 proteins overexpressed more than 1.5 fold in terms of volume ratio in the tumors. Ten of the over-expressed proteins were identified by MALDI-TOF MS; of those, only methionine adenosyltransferase 1 (MAT1), a protein specific for liver, and acyl-CoA dehydrogenase were significantly up-regulated in tumors in further immunoblotting analyses (Ps<0.05). There was no between-pair difference in MAT1 mRNA measured by real-time polymerase chain reaction (P=0.96). However, in western blots of serum samples, distinct MAT1 bands were observed in all 10 HCC patients, but in only 2 of the non-HCC patients. Conclusions: MAT1 is a potential marker for surveillance in cirrhotic patients with and without prior HCC.