Hepatocellular carcinoma: what is happening everywhere?

Welcome to this special issue of Chinese Clinical Oncology (CCO) on hepatocellular carcinoma. It is a great honor and privilege to guest-edit this special issue of CCO. I am very grateful to all my colleagues worldwide who participated in this effort (Video 1).

In this special edition on HCC, an update is provided on epidemiology, hepatology, radiology, scoring and staging, in addition to the different therapies including surgery, transplant, local therapies, and systemic considerations.

We also asked colleagues from various continents to provide their perspective on HCC in their country or region. This has translated into a great opportunity to focus on the global and regional differences in etiology and treatment paradigms.

The global perspectives are in part an effort to enhance international collaboration that could help elucidate some of the most intricate molecular aspects of hepatocellular carcinoma, that may depend on etiologic and ethnic differences. We hope this may also help in streamlining the management of the disease where applicable and hopefully help in more effective accrual to clinical trials.

On behalf of all the co-authors, a special thanks to the editor-in-chief Dr. Shukui Qin for this opportunity. While China continues to have a high incidence of hepatocellular carcinoma, having this comprehensive effort feature in CCO is a sign of solidarity with our Chinese colleagues and the worldwide community focused on HCC.