Reimagining Early Detection Screenings for Liver Cancer
How Dr. Claude Sirlin and his team are aiming to make liver cancer screenings more accessible to all patients
In his career as a radiologist and liver disease researcher, Claude Sirlin, M.D., has seen the crucial importance of catching and treating liver diseases at an early stage. Liver cancer is one of the cancers with the highest mortality rates, largely because of late-stage detection. The occurrence of liver cancer continues to rise due to liver disease and liver scarring.
From fatty liver disease to liver cancer, Dr. Sirlin and his team at Moores Cancer Center at the University of California San Diego Health aim to create new technologies to better the current screening practices in hopes of diagnosing patients with liver disease at earlier stages.
Dr. Sirlin, a professor of radiology, was awarded a Translational Grant from the V Foundation in 2022 to spur this innovative research.
“Fundamentally, the work funded by the V Foundation is to attempt to improve our ability to detect primary liver cancer at an early, curable stage. Currently, we rely on imaging to detect early liver cancer, and imaging is usually done in the form of an ultrasound, an MRI or a CT. But all of these imaging methods usually require major imaging centers, including radiology departments either in or affiliated with a hospital.”
While the current standards of imaging work well, they often are expensive and not readily available. It’s estimated that in about five years there will be as many as three million Americans with cirrhosis, an advanced stage of liver scarring. People with cirrhosis also carry an increased risk of liver cancer, meaning that millions of Americans would benefit from a more cost-effective, easier way to undergo these screenings regularly.
Dr. Sirlin and his team are aiming to develop ways of detecting liver cancer by using a small, handheld, ultrasound device. The grant from the V Foundation was the first grant his team received to try to translate the technology of a large, expensive ultrasound machine to a handheld probe. The hope is that this device would be easy to use so that a physician, nurse or another member of the care team could use it to screen for liver cancer regularly at doctors’ offices.
“If we could do inexpensive screenings with a handheld device without having to go to a radiology facility, we think that we could potentially detect liver cancer early in potentially tens of thousands of Americans who, under the current system, wouldn’t be diagnosed until the liver cancer is quite advanced and probably incurable.”
In addition to his work in cancer research, Dr. Sirlin is also researching other liver diseases. The aim of the research is to catch all diseases in their earliest state, helping patients be treated prior to the disease worsening.
“We’re also interested in using these small, handheld probes to detect things that happen before liver cancer, like the accumulation of too much fat in the liver or the accumulation of scarring or fibrosis in the liver, before someone is at risk for developing liver cancer. The V Foundation was really our first funding opportunity in this particular area.”
Dr. Sirlin’s passion for this topic of early detection comes largely from hearing stories from his patients and other liver disease patients. Dr. Sirlin has worked directly with the American Liver Foundation to get many of these patient testimonials.
“I don’t necessarily have liver disease, but I am a patient with my own health care issues. As a patient, I use that experience to guide what I do. One of the things I have heard from patients through the American Liver Foundation and other organizations is the experience of patients who didn’t know they had fatty liver disease until it was very advanced, either to the point where they needed a liver transplant or to the point they had liver cancer.”
“Many of these patients have expressed a real, sincere regret that their disease hadn’t been caught earlier when they could have done something about it less radical than undergo a liver transplantation.”
From the patients willing to participate in research, to the doctors, nurses and researchers, to organizations like the V Foundation funding research, to organizations like the American Liver Foundation providing the voices of patients, it takes a large team to create new treatment options and make advancements in research. This team all comes together to collaborate and seek a single goal: Victory Over Cancer®.
To Dr. Sirlin, Victory Over Cancer® in liver cancer is simple and aligns with his work: prevention and early detection.
“For liver cancer, victory would be prevention. We could identify people who are at risk for developing liver cancer decades before they develop liver cancer. Through a whole series of different strategies, such as behavior modification like more exercise, less alcohol consumption, we could actually prevent liver cancer from ever occurring.”
