Abstract:
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most
debilitating malignancies of hepatic origin and does not
only contribute significantly to global cancer-related mor-
tality but also global disease burden. Malfunctioning and
dysregulation of the entero-hepatic axis culminating from
chronic ingestion of dietary and other non-specific food
substances have been implicated in liver disease patho-
genesis and this has the potential to increase risk of HCC.
As a result, there have been increased efforts to advance
understanding of the role played by the perturbed gut in
liver disease and the key cell and molecular players in-
volved. Luckily, growing evidence from many independ-
ent studies seem to lend credence to the phenomenon of
bidirectional pathogenesis of entero-hepatic diseases. This
has raised hopes of finding more sensitive and specific
biomarkers for prognosis and diagnosis of entero-hepatic
diseases as well as identification of new therapeutic tar-
gets, more specifically for therapy against major risk fac-
tors (NAFLD, NASH, liver fibrosis, and cirrhosis) of HCC.
This chapter takes a panoramic view of the interactions between the perturbed gut and the susceptible liver. Spe-
cifically, the chapter highlights the consequences of gut
dysbiosis for liver disease pathogenesis and the risk of
HCC.
