Liver Cancer Podcast: Recent Episodes

International Liver Cancer Association (ILCA)

In this podcast, the ILCA Communications Committee will cover the most recent papers in liver cancer research and some of the key sessions from industry events. Join in for an interactive summary of the latest in liver cancer and hear from our ILCA experts as well as some special guests!

Season 4 - Episode 2

In the second episode of ILCA’s Liver Cancer Podcast, hosted by Sarah Cappuyns, MD, PhD, a Gastroenterology resident and member of the Y-ILCA Committee, we are joined by Jeroen Dekervel, Digestive Oncologist at the University Hospital in Leuven, Belgium.

In this episode, they engage in a discussion on the emerging role of biomarkers in guiding systemic therapy for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). They explore the need for reliable biomarkers to predict treatment response and tailor therapeutic approaches in HCC. The conversation highlights the most promising biomarkers currently being investigated, including those related to immunotherapy and targeted treatments and discusses their potential impact on the future of precision medicine in HCC management.

Season 4 - Episode 1

In this new episode of ILCA’s Liver Cancer Podcast, we kick off our 2025 series with an insightful discussion on the latest advancements in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) surveillance.

Hosted by Coskun Ozer Demirtas, Associate Professor of Gastroenterology & Hepatology at Marmara University (Turkey) and member of ILCA’s Young Investigators Committee, this episode features Amit Singal, transplant hepatologist and medical director of the liver cancer program at UT Southwestern in Dallas, TX.

Together, they explore the latest updates and future directions for HCC surveillance, focusing on ILCA’s white paper on HCC risk stratification and surveillance. Developed from the ILCA Single Topic Workshop held in June 2022, the white paper outlines the current state of the field, ongoing research, and challenges in translating new strategies into clinical practice.

Season 3 - Episode 9

In this episode, sponsored by Roche, we delve into the groundbreaking findings from the IMbrave150 trial, focusing on the efficacy and safety of Atezolizumab plus Bevacizumab versus Sorafenib in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) exhibiting main trunk and/or contralateral portal vein invasion. Join experts Amit Singal and Richard Finn as they break down the key results of this pivotal study, discussing the clinical implications for treatment strategies in advanced liver cancer.

Season 3 - Epiosode 8

In this episode, sponsored by Roche, David Pinato and Manon Allaire delve into the use of real-world research data and its implications. They share insights from their professional experiences with collecting, cleaning, and organizing this data. Clinical trial results often differ from real-world data, and our guests explore the gap between the two and its potential consequences. Finally, they discuss how real-world evidence is shaping the future of our profession.

In this episode, Joana Espírito Santo and Julien Calderaro explore the diagnostic complexity and the treatment and prognosis pitfalls of combined hepatocellular-cholangiocarcinomas (cHCC-CCAs). They reflect on the heterogeneity of these tumours and the potential impact of AI-based phenotyping, highlighting the importance of combining biopsy and imaging as an integrative approach.

Listen to this episode of the ILCA podcast for a captivating discussion addressing the perspectives and challenges of cHCC-CCAs.

In this episode, Lorenza Rimassa, Andrew Moon, and Jakob Kather discuss ways to enhance tumor board effectiveness. Lorenza emphasizes the importance of multidisciplinary collaboration, Andrew highlights patient representation, and Jakob explores the integration of AI. Listen to them as they engage in insightful exchanges, addressing questions and offering innovative solutions.

This episode is sponsored by Roche, a global pioneer in pharmaceuticals and diagnostics. Roche's goal is to partner with the HCC community to provide optimal care and treatment to patients with HCC by supporting the implementation of an MDT approach.

Meet Antonio D'Alessio and Claudia Campani, two of the best oral presenters from the ILCA 2023 Annual Conference. Antonio will present and discuss his work "Predictors of response to neoadjuvant immunotherapy in resectable hepatocellular carcinoma: preliminary clinical and translational analyses from the PRIME-HCC study". Claudia will present her work "Dynamic evolution of circulating tumor DNA in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma across tumor stages and treatments".

Incyte has co-funded this podcast and all content has been developed independently by ILCA.

In this episode, Dr Taizo Hibi and Dr Cristina Dopazo discuss a recent review article in Hepatoma Research titled: “Liver Transplantation for perihiliar cholangiocarcinoma: Do we need to move forward?". They discuss the outstanding results of the Mayo Clinic protocol based on liver transplantation after neoadjuvant chemoradiation in very selected patients with unresectable de novo pCCA or resectable pCCA arising under primary sclerosing cholangitis. However, its application is diverse worldwide. They also discuss the recommended tools for diagnostic work-up, the need for updating the systemic therapy following the results of the latest clinical trials, the role of cfDNA, and the importance of multicenter collaborations.

This episode discusses a recent review article in Hepatoma Research titled: "Challenges and Barriers in Hepatocellular Carcinoma Surveillance for Patients with non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease" (now called metabolic associated steatotic liver disease or MASLD). We discuss several important challenges and barriers that currently exist in caring for patients with MASLD cirrhosis, including the scale of the MASLD – hepatocellular carcinoma problem, the current lack and limitations of accurate risk stratification tools in order to improve detection and prevention of HCC in patients with MASLD cirrhosis, potential solutions to address these limitations, and ends with a discussion of current disparities that exist in HCC surveillance.

In this episode, Drs. Maria Reig and Richard Finn will dive deep into the updates and groundbreaking research presented at the ASCO GI Meeting in January 2023. They will explore the latest advancements in the field of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and cholangiocarcinoma (CCA). Here is what you can expect from this podcast:

• Updates on the efficacy and safety of new drugs in HCC

• The evolving landscape of systemic therapy for cholangiocarcinoma

• Evolving questions in sequencing systemic therapy in HCC

• The role of systemic therapy in the early stages of HCC

In this podcast, Lorenza Rimassa and Alejandro Forner summarize four abstracts orally presented during the ESMO annual congress held in Paris in September 2022.

Three abstracts report the results of first-line phase 3 trials of immunotherapy for unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma, and one trial reports the results of a phase 1/2 trial of a new FGFR inhibitor for cholangiocarcinoma.

HCC

LEAP-002 trial tested the combination of pembrolizumab and lenvatinib versus lenvatinib single agent and did not meet its primary endpoints. A second combination trial evaluated the combination of camrelizumab and rivoceranib versus sorafenib in a mostly Asian population showing the superiority of the combination compared to sorafenib, with a higher rate of adverse events. RATIONALE-301 assessed single-agent tislelizumab versus sorafenib demonstrating the non-inferiority of tislelizumab compared to sorafenib with a good safety profile.

CCA

The ReFocus study evaluated a new highly selective FGFR2 inhibitor in patients with cholangiocarcinoma with FGFR2 fusions previously treated with chemotherapy, showing impressive efficacy results and a good safety profile.

In this podcast, @valerie_paradis and @BarcenaVarela discuss four different papers presented at #ILCA22. These interesting works have the aim to combine experimental models and studies of clinical patients and identify new cellular target based on immune cells. This will help to predict the response to immune therapy and understand the prognosis of HCC.

In this episode David Pinato comments on the ILCA 2022 session on Diagnosis, Imaging and Biomarkers for HCC. Hear his considerations and analysis on novel biomarkers, protein biomarkers and gut microbiomes as potential sources of clinical available biomarkers in the setting of early diagnosis of liver cancers.

Medical education is key to improve liver surgery as well as preparing surgical procedures and setting technological tools in advance. In this podcast Gonzalo Sapisochin and Eric Vibert will go through the surgical session at ILCA2022, summarising and commenting on the future of liver surgery for primary liver cancer.

Hear all about the preliminary results of a real-life study, a new and promising therapeutical approach to HCC, the final results from FIGHT-202 and new presented data from the Phase 3 HIMALAYA Trial. In this episode, Associate Professor at Humanitas University and IRCCS Humanitas Research Hospital, Lorenza Rimassa, and Medical Doctor at BCLC group, Marco Sanduzzi Zamparelli, summarise the abstracts presented in General Session 4 - Therapy & Miscellaneous & Clinical Trials in progress during #ILCA22.

In this podcast, Ken Liu and Amit Singal will present and comment some highlights from the General Session 2: Epidemiology, Staging and Prognosis at the ILCA Annual Conference 2022.

Speakers:

· Ken Liu, Transplant Hepatologist, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney - Australia

· Amit Singal, Professor of Internal Medicine at UT Southwestern Medical Center, Texas - US.

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Hepatocellular carcinoma is a major health problem worldwide, being the fifth most common cancer and the third among cancer-related deaths. Surgery represents the cornerstone treatment for early stages, and Minimally Invasive Liver Surgery (MILS) has become an attractive option thanks to reduced intraoperative blood losses, shortened length of hospital stay, and similar oncological outcomes when compared to open liver resection. Nonetheless, the safety of MILS is still debated in challenging situations, such as in cirrhotic patients, difficult tumor locations, multiple or large tumors, and repeat resection.

In this podcast, Prof. Ho-Seong Han, professor of Surgery at Seoul National University College of Medicine, and renewed world leader in laparoscopic liver resection, discusses with his fellow Dr. Gianluca Cassese current indications of laparoscopic liver resection for HCC treatment in the light of its outcomes, focusing on technical aspects of minimally invasive anatomic liver resection.

In this episode, Drs. Amit Singal and Marco Sanduzzi-Zamparelli summarize presentations and the discussion from the ILCA Single Topic Workshop: HCC Risk Stratification and Surveillance, which was held in Paris, France on June 9-10, 2022.

The meeting and podcast covered a variety of topics including:

Risk stratification, including emerging clinical and biomarker-based risk models
Current status of primary prevention strategies for HCC
Factors impacting the efficacy versus effectiveness of HCC surveillance
Issues of surveillance underuse and potential interventions to increase adherence
Accuracy of current surveillance tools as well as status of alternative imaging and blood-based surveillance strategies

In this episode, authors Simone Khouzam and Duilio Pagano discuss the recently published research article "Protective benefit of minimally invasive liver surgery for hepatocellular carcinoma prior to transplant".

Examining the protective benefits of iterative surgical treatment of HCC prior to transplantation, surgeons at the ISMETT hospital in Palermo, Italy discuss the advantages of MILS for HCC and the importance of patient selection for intention to transplant. Given the complexity of HCC, the end goal remains to optimize the system to increase the number of patients transplanted.

Read full article: https://hrjournal.net/article/view/4666

In this podcast, Alejandro Forner summarised and commented some selected abstractsat the EASL Liver Cancer Summit 2022.

The following abstracts will be discussed:

Regorafenib in patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma in routine clinical practice: Exploratory analysis of safety and overall survival in the prospective, observational REFINE study. Finn R, et al. Liver Cancer Summit 2022 OS-55
Efficacy of combination therapy with lenvatinib, programmed cell death 1 inhibitors and transarterial therapy: a propensity score-matching cohort study. Wei Lu, et al. Liver Cancer Summit 2022 PO-119
Progression patterns and therapeutic sequencing following immune checkpoint inhibition for HCC: an observational study.Thomas Talbot, et al. Liver Cancer Summit 2022 PO-128
Systemic treatments with tyrosine kinase inhibitors and platinum-based chemotherapy in patients with unresectable or metastatic hepato-cholangiocarcinoma. Elia Gigante et al. Liver Cancer Summit 2022 PO-148
Lenvatinib with or without concurrent drug-eluting beads transarterial chemoembolization in patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma: A real-world, multicentre, retrospective study. Guohong Han et al. Liver Cancer Summit 2022 PO-220
Liver transplantation for combined hepatocellular-cholangiocarcinoma: An analysis of the European Liver Transplant Registry. Marco Claasen et al. Liver Cancer Summit 2022 PO-308
Liver transplantation for fibrolamellar hepatocellular carcinoma: An analysis of the European Liver Transplant Registry. Marco Claasen et al. Liver Cancer Summit 2022 PO-313

In this Podcast Drs. Richard Finn and Mark Yarchoan review recent practice changing data from recent international meetings including ESMO Asia 2021 and ASCG GI 2022. These include results of the COSMIC 312 study, the HIMALAYA study, KEYNOTe 394 among others. Please join us for data review and some comments to put these results in context.

In this podcast, co-chairs Lorenza Rimassa and Pierre Nahon summarised and commented the presentations during the plenary session Design of Clinical Trials for Adjuvant and Locoregional Strategies at the EASL Liver Cancer Summit 2022.

Speakers:

· Lorenza Rimassa, Humanitas University and IRCCS Humanitas Research Hospital, Milan, Italy

· Pierre Nahon, Avicenne Hospital in Bondy, APHP, France

In this podcast, co-chairs Amit Singal and Nicole Rich summarised and commented the abstracts orally presented during the General Session 3: Diagnosis, Imaging and Biomarkers at the ILCA Annual Conference 2021.

Speakers:

· Amit Singal, MD, UT Southwestern Medical Center, USA

· Nicole Rich, MD, MSCS,UT Southwestern Medical Center, USA

In this podcast, co-chairs Amaia Lujambio and Stephanie Roessler summarised and commented the abstracts orally presented during the General Session 1: Molecular Pathogenesis, Cell Biology and Translational Research at the ILCA Annual Conference 2021.

Speakers:

· Amaia Lujambio, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York

· Stephanie Roessler, University of Heidelberg, Germany

In this podcast, co-chairs Jens Marquardt and Lorenza Rimassa summarised and commented the presentations during the session Latest Data in Systemic Therapy for Liver Cancer at the EASL Liver Cancer Summit 2022.

· The session aim to provide an overview on the latest developments in systemic therapies for primary liver cancer

· The session will discuss the relevance of precision oncological as well as immune-oncological approaches in HCC and CCA

· The session will delineate future concepts and strategies for primary liver cancer

Speakers:

· Jens Marquardt, University of Lübeck, Germany

· Lorenza Rimassa, Humanitas University and IRCCS Humanitas Research Hospital, Milan, Italy

In this podcast, co-chairs David Pinato and Anjana Pillai summarised and commented the abstracts orally presented during the General Session 2: Epidemiology, Staging and Prognosis at the ILCA Annual Conference 2021.

Speakers:

· David Pinato, Clinical Senior Lecturer in Medical Oncology, Imperial College London

· Anjana Pillai, Associate Professor of Medicine, University of Chicago Medicine

In this podcast, Lorenza Rimassa and Alejandro Forner summarised and commented the six abstracts orally presented during the General Session 4: Therapy & Clinical Trials in 2021 at the ILCA Annual Conference 2021.

Speakers:

· Lorenza Rimassa, Humanitas University and IRCCS Humanitas Research Hospital, Milan, Italy

· Alejandro Forner, BCLC Group, Barcelona, Spain