Augusto Rodriguez, MD, PhD, talks about the scope of his work and research on different aspects of liver oncology. Dr. Rodriguez’s work centers on the goal of incorporating molecular information from tumors into tools that can be applied in the clinical setting to improve prognosis predictions, and developing novel methods for early detection of liver cancer.

One promising new technology for early detection of liver cancer—liquid biopsy—identifies tumor components within the bloodstream such as DNA fragments from tumors or extracellular vesicles released from tumors. In addition, Dr. Rodriguez discusses:
• The underlying diseases that can cause liver cancer, and how long it generally takes for liver cancer to develop
• The range of therapies that have been approved for use in patients with liver cancer, and why it has been challenging to determine which type of therapy will work best for a particular patient
• What it means for a liver tumor to be heterogenous and why it’s significant