Features and treatment options of Chinese hepatocellular carcinoma

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common cancers worldwide. More than 53% of the total HCC patients in the world come from China. The absolute number of new Chinese HCC cases still keeps increasing and it remains a most dominant cancer burden in the next several decades. Compared to the HCC occurred in Europe and North America, Chinese HCC patients have their own special features in etiology, demographic features (risk factors, age of onset, gender distribution time trend of incidence), biological behavior, clinical manifestation, treatment strategy and prognosis. The success or failure of a series of clinical trials related with systemic therapy for advanced HCC can be partly attributed to those features of Chinese HCC. Thus it is suggested that new trials should be performed respectively for Chinese HCC patients from the Western population, like the success of sorafenib SHARP and ORIENTAL studies. The protocal design, organization and practice of trials in HCC of China should be made individually to avoid or reduce the possible heterogeneity of HCC populations and facilitate the personalized therapy of HCC. The present review discussed the features and treatment options of HCC in China that maybe help to understand the clinical course for Chinese patients with HCC. More importantly, the future strategies for clinical trials of Chinese HCC were emphasized.