Cytogenetic and genetic alterations during hepatocarcinogenesis

The study of the cancer phenotype, should from the theoretical point of view, be considered as the study of any other phenotype. It is the result of the interaction between genotype and environment; of course this does not exclude that environmental factors can modify the inherited genotype. The cancer phenotype is dependent on the interaction of one (monogenic inheritance) or more (polygenic inheritance) “cancergenes”, which may be dominant or recessive, with the surrounding conditions which may or may not favor the progression of the pre-malignant cells. As far as the polygenic model is concerned, the expression of the cancerphenotype may be understood as the probability to combine in a given cell, the expression of a given set of genes; due to the number of cancergenes, different combinations of genesets can be responsible for the (pre)-malignant status.