Bridging the Gap Between Imaging and Molecular Characterization: Current Understanding of Radiomics and Radiogenomics in Hepatocellular Carcinoma

J Hepatocell Carcinoma. 2024 Nov 27:11:2359-2372. doi: 10.2147/JHC.S423549. eCollection 2024.

Abstract

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the sixth most common malignancy worldwide and the third leading cause of cancer-related deaths. Imaging plays a crucial role in the screening, diagnosis, and monitoring of HCC; however, the potential mechanism regarding phenotypes or molecular subtyping remains underexplored. Radiomics significantly expands the selection of features available by extracting quantitative features from imaging data. Radiogenomics bridges the gap between imaging and genetic/transcriptomic information by associating imaging features with critical genes and pathways, thereby providing biological annotations to these features. Despite challenges in interpreting these connections, assessing their universality, and considering the diversity in HCC etiology and genetic information across different populations, radiomics and radiogenomics offer new perspectives for precision treatment in HCC. This article provides an up-to-date summary of the advancements in radiomics and radiogenomics throughout the HCC care continuum, focusing on the clinical applications, advantages, and limitations of current techniques and offering prospects. Future research should aim to overcome these challenges to improve the prognosis of HCC patients and leverage imaging information for patient benefit.

Keywords: hepatocellular carcinoma; radiogenomics; radiomics.

Publication types

  • Review

Grants and funding

This work was supported in part by the National Key Sci-Tech Special Project of China (No. 2018ZX10302207), the Beijing Natural Science Foundation (No. 7222191), the Beijing Natural Science Foundation (NO. 7244426), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, Peking University (PKU2024XGK005), the Peking University Medicine Seed Fund for Interdisciplinary Research (No. BMU2021MX007, BMU2022MX001), and Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, Peking University People’s Hospital Scientific Research Development Funds (No. RDX2020-06, No. RDJ2022-14), and the Qi-Min Project (grant number: NA.).