HGF as a biomarker for liver damage after radiotherapy

  • Clinical Condition
    • According with the American Cancer Research Institute, world-wide over 840,000 new cases of liver cancer will be diagnosed and over 600,000 people will die of this cancer.

  • Current Practice
    • Radiotherapy for liver cancer is potentially curative, but it rarely used because of the risk for radiation-induced liver disease (RILD), which could be lethal even in the absence of disease progression.

  • Solution
    •  Our solution is a new biomarker to predict and prevent the significant risk for RILD.
    • High pretreatment level of the circulating plasma hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) was associated with RILD in liver cancer patients treated with radiotherapy.
    • Ongoing Phase III clinical trial at MGH to prove association.
    • A provisional patent was filed on October 2018.
    • License to companies that are focused on stereotactic body radiotherapy: proton or photon therapy.