title: Clinical utility of a simple primary culture method in hepatocellular carcinoma patients.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The clinical utility of our designed primary culture method in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma was investigated.
  
  
  METHODS
  Specimens obtained from ultrasound-guided fine-needle aspiration of 108 hepatocellular carcinoma patients were cultured. The associations of the cellular proliferative speeds with cancer invasiveness and 1-year survivals were analyzed.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Successful cultures were achieved in 105 patients (97.2%). Ten hepatocellular carcinoma and nine cancer-associated fibroblast cell lines were established. The cells obtained from patients with American Joint Committee on Cancer TNM staging ≥ IIIB upon entering the study had higher proportion of rapidly proliferative cancer cells than those from patients with staging ≤ IIIA (P < 0.005). For Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer classification A or B patients receiving palliative transcatheter chemoembolization, patients with rapidly proliferative cancer-associated fibroblasts showed higher incidence of cancer-related death than patients with other proliferative patterns (P = 0.0385). The influence of the presence of rapidly proliferative cancer cells on survivals in this group could not be calculated due to a very small number of this kind of patients (9.5%). For Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer classification C patients receiving non-curative treatment, the incidence of rapidly proliferative cancer cells was 45.2%. Patients with rapidly proliferative cancer cells showed higher incidence of cancer-related death than patients with other proliferative patterns in patients receiving chemoembolization (P = 0.0452) and in patients receiving conservative treatment (P = 0.0206).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our method can provide cells from individual patient for researches and predict outcomes in patients receiving non-curative treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma.
authors.affiliation: Cancer Center and Division of Hepatobiliary Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital, Kaohsiung, Taiwan; Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, College of Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Zu-Yau
authors.initials: ZY
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.forename: Chun-Chieh
authors.initials: CC
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: Yen-Hwang
authors.initials: YH
authors.lastname: Chuang
authors.forename: Wan-Long
authors.initials: WL
authors.lastname: Chuang
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D006528:Carcinoma, Hepatocellular / Q000145:classification / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology* / Q000628:therapy*; D049109:Cell Proliferation; D002470:Cell Survival; D016461:Chemoembolization, Therapeutic; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D005544:Forecasting; D006801:Humans; D008113:Liver Neoplasms / Q000145:classification / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology* / Q000628:therapy*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009361:Neoplasm Invasiveness; D010166:Palliative Care; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D014407:Tumor Cells, Cultured
keywords: cancer-associated fibroblast; fine-needle aspiration; hepatocellular carcinoma; primary culture; transcatheter chemoembolization