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Cellular and Molecular Biology

Use the term “infiltrative” instead of “replacement” when defining histopathological growth pattern in patients with liver cancer

British Journal of Cancer volume 128, pages 489–490 (2023)Cite this article

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We are pleased to have read the guideline “Histopathological growth patterns of liver metastasis: updated consensus guidelines for pattern scoring, perspectives and recent mechanistic insights” [1]. We appreciate the contributions of the team of authors for the guidelines that focused on topical issues, updated the criteria and provided a comprehensive review of current researches, offering a forward-looking perspective. Meanwhile, we would like to make suggestion for the guidelines; the term “replacement” may not be that accurate for description of histopathological growth pattern (HGP) and we suggest the term “infiltrative” be used instead.

First of all, we acknowledge the phenomenon of replacing, however, this is dependent on the type of tumor. Only some tumors (those with good affinity to hepatocytes) can form a replacement pattern in liver, whereas those tumors with distinct biology and origins cannot form a standard replacement pattern in the liver and are more akin to grow into liver with infiltrative morphologies, which distinguish them from the encapsulated one, ie, desmoplastic histopathological growth pattern.

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References

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Acknowledgements

This work was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (82174454/82074182/82274599).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, 100029, Beijing, China

    Bingtan Kong

  2. Department of Oncology, Beijing Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Capital Medical University, 100010, Beijing, China

    Qing Zhang & Ganlin Zhang

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  1. Bingtan Kong
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  2. Qing Zhang
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All authors wrote and critically evaluated the paper.

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Correspondence to Bingtan Kong, Qing Zhang or Ganlin Zhang.

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Kong, B., Zhang, Q. & Zhang, G. Use the term “infiltrative” instead of “replacement” when defining histopathological growth pattern in patients with liver cancer. Br J Cancer 128, 489–490 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41416-022-02121-w

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