Research progress on artificial intelligence-empowered liquid biopsy for early detection and screening of hepatocellular carcinoma

CUI Yu-han, DU Zu-chao, WANG Ming-da, LI Chao, GU Li-hui, XU Jia-hao, YANG Tian

Chinese Journal of Practical Surgery ›› 2026, Vol. 46 ›› Issue (4) : 532-537.

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Chinese Journal of Practical Surgery ›› 2026, Vol. 46 ›› Issue (4) : 532-537. DOI: 10.19538/j.cjps.issn1005-2208.2026.04.25

Research progress on artificial intelligence-empowered liquid biopsy for early detection and screening of hepatocellular carcinoma

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Abstract

Recently, liquid biopsy and artificial intelligence (AI) technology offer promising early HCC detection opportunities. Liquid biopsy can provide non-invasive early molecular events from circulating tumour DNA mutations, methylation alterations and fragmentomic features, circulating tumour cells or extracellular vesicles. AI technologies such as machine learning and deep learning algorithm can overcome technical issues such as low-abundance signals and background noises for improved diagnostic performance. Building multimodal analytic models using liquid biopsies and clinical protein biomarkers, radiomics and pathomics features can improve model performance, which has substantial potential for clinical application. However, several barriers still impede clinical translation including poor technical standardization, low-interpretability of algorithms, poor external validation, and high implementation costs.

Key words

hepatocellular carcinoma / liquid biopsy / artificial intelligence / circulating tumour DNA / early detection of cancer

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CUI Yu-han , DU Zu-chao , WANG Ming-da , et al . Research progress on artificial intelligence-empowered liquid biopsy for early detection and screening of hepatocellular carcinoma[J]. Chinese Journal of Practical Surgery. 2026, 46(4): 532-537 https://doi.org/10.19538/j.cjps.issn1005-2208.2026.04.25

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利益冲突声明 所有作者均声明不存在利益冲突

Funding

National Natural Science Foundation of China(82425049)
National Natural Science Foundation of China(82273074)
National Science and Technology Major Project of the Ministry of Science and Technology of China(2024ZD0520500)
National Science and Technology Major Project of the Ministry of Science and Technology of China(2024ZD0520506)
Shanghai Outstanding Academic Leader Program(23XD1424900)
Dawn Project Foundation of Shanghai(21SG36)
Shanghai Health and Hygiene Discipline Leader Project(2022XD001)
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