Mindie H. Nguyen, MD, MAS, of Stanford Health Care speaks about the publication of the ENCORE data in Hepatology Communications, demonstrating the superior performance of HelioLiver for early detection of liver cancer.
About the interview
Dr. Mindie H. Nguyen — a hepatologist and transplant hepatologist and Professor of Medicine at Stanford — discusses the ENCORE results, published in Hepatology Communications, which evaluated how well the HelioLiver blood test identifies liver cancer in its earlier stages.
What the study set out to do
ENCORE was designed to measure HelioLiver’s performance — its sensitivity and specificity — across people with liver cancer at every stage, from I through IV. To keep that measurement rigorous, the control group included people confirmed cancer-free by imaging such as ultrasound, MRI, or CT, along with high-risk patients already advised to undergo liver cancer surveillance, and patients with non-HCC cancers to gauge analytical specificity.
Testing the assay against that realistic mix — rather than healthy volunteers alone — matters, because a surveillance test has to tell cancer apart from the benign and chronic liver conditions that so often surround it.
Why it matters
Liver cancer is far more treatable when it’s caught early, yet many at-risk patients slip through the gaps of imaging-based surveillance. A sensitive test that runs from a single blood draw could make regular monitoring simpler and more accessible — the outcome Dr. Nguyen and the ENCORE investigators are working toward.
View source version on oncologytube.com.