Understanding intra-tumor heterogeneity and tumor evolution to facilitate hepatocellular carcinoma therapy

We appreciate this insightful commentary by Zaki et al. (1) on our article “Variable Intra-Tumor Genomic Heterogeneity of Multiple Lesions in Patients with Hepatocellular Carcinoma” (2). In this editorial, they highlighted the therapeutic challenge that clinicians face when dealing with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), which is the limited therapeutic choices further complicated by intra-tumor heterogeneity (ITH). Such ITH exists in multiple biopsies of a single lesion and multiple lesions in a single liver. Investigating the ITH of HCC can provide important implications on the effectiveness of targeted therapy, i.e., sorafenib (3), and may pave the way for more effective treatment.