Fibroblast Growth Factor 19 is an Independent Prognostic Parameter for Hepatocellular Carcinoma Recurrence

Background: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains a common cancer associated with a high mortality rate. Genes that drive HCC development accumulate randomly that could be a target for therapeutic management. In large-scale studies, the dysregulation of fibroblast growth factors (FGFRs) was detected in over 7% of cancers and served as an oncogenic signalling pathway. Amplification of FGF19 was found to be associated with the development of HBV and NAFLD related HCC with an ongoing clinical trial for targeting this pathway. Therefore, we aimed to study FGF19 in HCV related HCC and to compare its expression within the two main morphological patterns. Material and methods: This was a retrospective, case-control study that included 76 HCC cases and 53 adjacent non-tumour liver, 20 cirrhosis and 20 normal liver tissue as normal control. The Immunohistochemical expression turned into assessed in the studied groups. Results: FGF19 was expressed in 26.3% of HCC cases with no significant difference in its expression between two HCC subgroups (P=0.073). The expression of FGF19 was not differed in the HCC group according to the aetiology (P=0.605), prior HCV treatment (P=0.912) or background liver cirrhosis (P=0.931). The only factor increased FGF19 expression with the marked inflammatory activity of the background liver (P=0.026). COX regression analysis revealed that FGF19 was the single independent factor affecting tumour recurrence (P=0.04). Conclusions: FGF19 is commonly expressed in HCC cases independent from the etiological, background liver or morphological subtypes. FGF19 could be used as an indicator to predict tumour recurrence.