1st Meeting: "Early detection of liver cancer in the elderly".

Abstract

In 2020, liver cancer was the sixth most common cancer worldwide, but ranked third in cancer mortality. Liver cancer cases have tripled in the last 20 years, especially among people over 65 years of age. These tumours are characterised by a silent progression in the early stages, which is why they are often diagnosed in advanced stages of development, when patients are no longer candidates for curative treatment based on surgery and, although drug treatment options are increasing in recent years, the prognosis remains poor.

One of the advances that would be most useful to improve the quality of life and survival of patients with liver cancer is the availability of minimally invasive techniques, using blood tests, to carry out diagnosis at earlier stages; this would allow more patients to receive surgical treatment and have a better chance of being cured. The potential usefulness of different compounds in blood as biomarkers (proteins, microRNAs, or metabolites) has been investigated in recent years and some of them have shown promising results for the accurate diagnosis of the two most frequent tumours affecting the liver (hepatocarcinoma and intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma) and also for distinguishing between distal cholangiocarcinoma and pancreatic cancer. Accurate diagnosis of each type of tumour is necessary for each patient to receive the most appropriate treatment, as it is different for each tumour. Several biomarker panels are currently being investigated in validation studies and may in the future reach the clinic.

OLD-HEPAMARKER: "Non-invasive biomarkers of liver damage progression and usefulness as targets for treatment in elderly patients", a research work selected by the General Foundation of the University of Salamanca, in the framework of the International Centre on Ageing (CENIE), which is a joint Spanish-Portuguese initiative financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through the Interreg V-A Cooperation Programme, Spain-Portugal, POCTEP, 2014-2020.

Speakers:

Rocío I. Rodríguez Macías

Research Coordinator of the Coordinated Programme. PhD in Pharmacy from the University of Salamanca and Professor of Physiology at the University of Salamanca.

Dr. Rocío I. Rodríguez Macías, after obtaining her PhD in Pharmacy from the University of Salamanca, continued her training in hepatic physiopathology as a postdoctoral fellow at the University Hospital of Zürich (Switzerland) and at the Immunology Service of the Carlos III Health Institute in Majadahonda. She is a senior member of the recognized research group "Experimental Hepatology and Drug Vectorization (HEVEPHARM)" and, after joining the University of Salamanca, she made shorter stays at the University of Paris (France), and at the University Hospital of Düsseldorf (Germany). In 2008 she obtained a position as Associate Professor and teaches Physiology and Cell Cultures in the Biotechnology Degree, as well as in the Master's Degree of the Faculty of Pharmacy. During the last decade, he has been interested in biomarker research in liver cancer, in the search for pharmacological strategies to overcome resistance to chemotherapy and in the vectorisation of drugs towards these tumours. All of this, with the aim of increasing the survival of patients with this type of cancer, who are mostly elderly people. 

Rui Eduardo Castro

D. in Pharmacy from the University of Lisbon and Principal Investigator at the Research Institute for Medicines (iMed.ULisboa).

Dr. Rui Eduardo Castro received his PhD in Pharmacy (Biochemistry) from the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Lisbon (FFULisboa) in 2006, after spending more than a year in the Department of Medicine at the University of Minnesota, USA. During his PhD, Castro made important contributions to the characterisation of bile acids (BA) as potent signalling molecules, particularly with respect to cell fate modulation. In 2015, he started working as a principal investigator in the Cell Function and Therapeutic Targeting Group (https://imed.ulisboa.pt/cv/rui-eduardo-mota-castro/). Castro's most recent publications, derived directly from his own research, have contributed to the understanding of the role of miRNAs during liver regeneration and the pathogenesis of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), as well as the importance of miRNAs as genetic and molecular targets for bile acids during cell fate modulation. Well-established in vitro and in vivo disease models, liver biopsies from human and animal patients with liver-specific miRNA knock-out are being used in multi-layered pharmacological approaches with the aim of finally bringing miRNA therapies to the hepatic clinical setting.

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*This meeting will be held online via Zoom. Registration will be open until 15 September.

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