title: Oligonucleotide microarray for prediction of early intrahepatic recurrence of hepatocellular carcinoma after curative resection.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Hepatocellular carcinoma has a poor prognosis because of the high intrahepatic recurrence rate. There are technological limitations to traditional methods such as TNM staging for accurate prediction of recurrence, suggesting that new techniques are needed.
  
  
  METHODS
  We investigated mRNA expression profiles in tissue specimens from a training set, comprising 33 patients with hepatocellular carcinoma, with high-density oligonucleotide microarrays representing about 6000 genes. We used this training set in a supervised learning manner to construct a predictive system, consisting of 12 genes, with the Fisher linear classifier. We then compared the predictive performance of our system with that of a predictive system with a support vector machine (SVM-based system) on a blinded set of samples from 27 newly enrolled patients.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Early intrahepatic recurrence within 1 year after curative surgery occurred in 12 (36%) and eight (30%) patients in the training and blinded sets, respectively. Our system correctly predicted early intrahepatic recurrence or non-recurrence in 25 (93%) of 27 samples in the blinded set and had a positive predictive value of 88% and a negative predictive value of 95%. By contrast, the SVM-based system predicted early intrahepatic recurrence or non-recurrence correctly in only 16 (60%) individuals in the blinded set, and the result yielded a positive predictive value of only 38% and a negative predictive value of 79%.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our system predicted early intrahepatic recurrence or non-recurrence for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma much more accurately than the SVM-based system, suggesting that our system could serve as a new method for characterising the metastatic potential of hepatocellular carcinoma.
authors.affiliation: Department of Bioregulatory Function, Yamaguchi University School of Medicine, Ube, Yamaguchi, Japan.
authors.forename: Norio
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Iizuka
authors.forename: Masaaki
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Oka
authors.forename: Hisafumi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yamada-Okabe
authors.forename: Minekatsu
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Nishida
authors.forename: Yoshitaka
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Maeda
authors.forename: Naohide
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Mori
authors.forename: Takashi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Takao
authors.forename: Takao
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Tamesa
authors.forename: Akira
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tangoku
authors.forename: Hisahiro
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Tabuchi
authors.forename: Kenji
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Hamada
authors.forename: Hironobu
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Nakayama
authors.forename: Hideo
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ishitsuka
authors.forename: Takanobu
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Miyamoto
authors.forename: Akira
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hirabayashi
authors.forename: Shunji
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Uchimura
authors.forename: Yoshihiko
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Hamamoto
mesh_terms: D006528:Carcinoma, Hepatocellular / Q000235:genetics* / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery; D005260:Female; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D008113:Liver Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics* / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009364:Neoplasm Recurrence, Local; D020411:Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis / Q000379:methods*; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests