Hepatocellular carcinoma: Present and future

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the sixth most common cancer worldwide with over 740,000 new cases per year and the third leading cause of cancer-related death, with a growing incidence in recent years. This tumor usually arises in patients with an underlying chronic liver disease. The management of this tumor has improved over the past 2 decades: patients at risk are included in a surveillance program, a prognostic staging system has been created and, finally, new treatments particularly aimed at patients with advanced HCC have been developed. This fact has resulted in a greater interest in this tumor and several scientific societies have developed clinical practice guidelines for the management of patients with this disease. In this article, we review the current and future prospects of this tumor.