Targets and Approaches to Control Hepatocellular Carcinoma in Future

Cancer is uncontrolled proliferation of cells, which results from the loss of proper balance 10 between cell death and cell growth. The transformed phenotypes of cancer cells are caused by 11 the accumulation of mutations in a variety of genes whose products normally play a role in 12 the biochemical pathways that regulate cell death and cell proliferation. Cancer is a broad term 13 used to define a group of more than 250 different diseases (Roncalli et al. 2010). It is a slow 14 multi-stage, multi-step process (Camma et al. 2008; Calvisi et al. 2009; Sherman 2011). In the 15 first instance, these cells, derived initially from a normal cell, form a primary tumor which 16 comprises a growth-transformed population of cells. The cells acquire a set of mutations to a 17 set of genes which allow them to divide repeatedly in a way that normal cells cannot 18 (Besaratinia et al. 2009; Calvisi et al. 2009). Histologically, cancer is characterized by several 19 morphological alterations, including changes in tissue architecture, cytological abnormalities 20 of both the nucleus and cytoplasm and the presence of abnormal mitoses. A stepwise several 21 biochemical and genetic and biological alterations eventually result in a cancer. 22