The new era of precision medicine in hepatocellular carcinoma: the urgent need for promising biomarkers

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the second most lethal malignancy worldwide, and the prognosis of advanced HCC is especially dismal. After the SHARP trial reported in 2007, a number of phase III trials of molecular targeting agents for advanced HCC have been conducted, but most of them have failed to achieve their primary endpoint, and sorafenib has been the only first-line systemic therapy approved for HCC in this decade (1).