We previously described a divergent clinical and molecular presentation of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in Peru. The present study aimed to further characterize the tissue features associated with this singular nosological form of HCC in order to gain insight into the natural history of the disease. We performed an exploratory analysis of the histology of both tumor and non-tumor liver (NTL) tissues from 50 Peruvian HCC patients, and compared with that of 75 individuals with non-HCC liver tumor or benign liver lesions as a baseline for NTL features. We complemented this approach with a transcriptome analysis in a subset of NTL tissue samples and also performed an ultra-sensitive hepatitis B virus (HBV) detection in liver tissues of the patients. Overall, results highlighted the low rate of liver parenchymal alterations in a young patient cohort (median age: 40 years old), despite a str...

This study was funded by the French National Alliance for Life Sciences and Health (ENV201408); LC was a recipient of a doctoral fellowship from French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD) (EMHE-ARTS-2016-878573B); JPC was a recipient of a doctoral fellowship from the Peruvian National Council for Science and Technology (212-2015-FONDECYT); SB has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Framework program under the Marie Sk?odowska-Curie Actions 823935 and from the Alliance pour les Sciences de la Vie et de la Santé (AVIESAN), ITMO Cancer ENV201408, and LC, ER, and SCZ have received funding from the World Bank Group and FONDECYT-CONCYTEC 016-2018-FONDECYT/BM. The authors are grateful to Karina Cancino, Danny Cordova (INEN Cancer Research Biobank), Patricia Leroyer (NUMECAN), Alain Fautrel, Marine Seffals, Gevorg Ghukasyan (H2P2 platform). They a...