Personalized molecular targeted therapy for hepatocellular carcinoma in the era of genome sequencing

Nowadays, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) represents a major health problem worldwide, being the second most frequent cause of cancer-related deaths (1). Among the different cancer types, HCC is the fifth most common in men and the seventh in women (1). In the liver, HCC is the first primary malignancy, accounting for about 90% of hepatic cancers. Its incidence is globally increasing, exceeding the 780,000 new cases in 2012 (2,3). Because of its high lethality, incidence and mortality of HCC are almost equal (1-3). Albeit with a global diffusion, HCC hits hard in some specific geographic areas, since over 80% of cases are diagnosed in the Sub-Saharan Africa and in East Asia, in contrast with North and South America, North Europe and Oceania, where HCC incidence is lower, whereas in the Mediterranean countries HCC risk is intermediate (4).