Evaluation of Treatment Predictors Reflecting Beta-catenin Activation in Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Description

This is a prospective open-label single-arm diagnostic clinical trial evaluating fluorine-18 fluorocholine (FCH) PET/CT and cell-free DNA mutation profiling (also referred to as genomic liquid biopsy) as diagnostic tools for predicting therapeutic response in advanced HCC patients receiving immune-checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) therapy. All enrolled subjects will undergo diagnostic testing with FCH PET/CT and genomic liquid biopsy before ICI treatment. A fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) PET/CT may also be performed before treatment and after 8 weeks if the pre-treatment FCH PET/CT shows low or heterogeneous tumor uptake. The accuracy of tumor biomarkers based on PET/CT and liquid biopsy for predicting therapeutic outcome and disease progression will be determined using objective clinical endpoints based on the radiographic classification of treatment response by RECIST v1.1 applied to CT or MRI performed after 16 weeks of treatment.