Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 13, 2026

A Three-Dimensional Spheroid Model to Investigate the Tumor-Stromal Interaction in Hepatocellular Carcinoma
Published on: September 30, 2021
AI in predicting the macrotrabecular-massive subtype of HCC and informing treatment selection: a multi-center and
Ran Wei1, Hanyu Jiang2, Mengxuan Zuo3,4,5
1Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China.
Abstract:
The macrotrabecular-massive (MTM) subtype of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is associated with aggressive biology and poor prognosis. We aimed to develop a CT-based artificial intelligence model (DeepCT-MTM) for the noninvasive prediction of MTM-HCC and investigate its prognostic utilities as well as biological underpinnings. A total of 3118 patients with HCC were included from 20 tertiary-care hospitals. DeepCT-MTM was developed and validated among 832 patients with early-stage HCC undergoing resection (the resection set) and extrapolated to 2286 patients (including 480 prospectively-collected ones) with intermediate/advanced-stage HCC receiving IATs. DeepCT-MTM's predictive performance for MTM-HCC was evaluated using the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC), and its prognostic values were investigated for progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS). In the external test cohort of the resection set, DeepCT-MTM predicted MTM-HCC with an AUC of 0.845. The DeepCT-MTM-predicted high-risk group had worse PFS and OS across all IAT sets (all P < 0.05).. DeepCT-MTM is effective for noninvasively predicting MTM-HCC and may help selecting patients who benefit from a combination of IAT with immunotherapy and anti-angiogenic therapy. However, prospective validations are warranted for these hypothesis-generating findings.
