Journal of hepatocellular carcinoma
October 16, 2026 · via Europe PMC
Negative Correlation Between ADC Values and GPC3 Expression in Hepatocellular Carcinoma: A Quantitative Diffusion-Weighted Imaging Study.
Fu Z, Huang Y, Liu Y, Man Y.
AI summary — for doctors, generated from the abstract only
Higher glypican-3 expression in hepatocellular carcinoma was associated with lower tumor ADC values on diffusion-weighted MRI.
What was studied
Retrospective study of 468 patients with pathology-confirmed HCC and preoperative MRI, grouped by GPC3 immunohistochemistry (negative, low, high) and compared on tumor ADC, adjacent liver ADC and their ratio.
Key findings
- Tumor ADC differed significantly across GPC3 groups.
- Tumor-to-liver ADC ratio fell with GPC3 expression (0.97, 0.91, 0.87).
- ADC measures were negatively correlated with GPC3 (r about -0.52 and -0.56).
Clinical relevance
ADC could offer a noninvasive hint of GPC3 status, relevant to prognosis and GPC3-targeted therapy considerations.
Who should care
Limitations
Single-design retrospective study with unbalanced groups (357 high expression) and no diagnostic accuracy or validation shown in the abstract.
Treat ADC as a supportive, hypothesis-level marker of GPC3 rather than a substitute for immunohistochemistry.
This is an AI-generated summary of the published abstract, not a clinical recommendation. It may not reflect the full text or subsequent updates — verify against the original source before acting on it.
Abstract
Objective
To investigate the association between apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) derived from diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) and glypican-3 (GPC3) expression in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), and to explore the potential of ADC as a non-invasive imaging biomarker for assessing GPC3 expression.
Methods
This retrospective study included 468 patients with pathologically confirmed HCC who underwent preoperative liver magnetic resonance imaging between January 2020 and December 2025. Based on immunohistochemical staining, patients were classified into three groups: GPC3-negative (GPC3-, n=69), low-expression (GPC3+, n=42), and high-expression (GPC3++, n=357). Tumor ADC values, adjacent liver tissue ADC values, and tumor-to-liver ADC ratios were measured and compared among groups. Statistical analyses included the Kruskal-Wallis test, Mann-Whitney U-test with Bonferroni correction, and Spearman correlation analysis.
Results
Tumor ADC values differed significantly among the three groups (p-3 mm2/s in the GPC3-, GPC3+, and GPC3++ groups, respectively. The tumor-to-liver ADC ratios were 0.97 (0.94-1.00), 0.91 (0.88-0.94), and 0.87 (0.84-0.90), respectively, and also showed significant differences among groups (pr=-0.52 and r=-0.56, respectively; both p<0.001).
Conclusion
Higher GPC3 expression in HCC was associated with lower tumor ADC values. Quantitative DWI-derived ADC, including both tumor ADC and the tumor-to-liver ADC ratio, may serve as a promising imaging biomarker associated with GPC3 expression, potentially offering supportive information for preoperative evaluation of HCC.
DOI
10.2147/jhc.s639302
PMID
42903806
Research metadata (titles, abstracts, authors, publication dates) is sourced from Europe PMC, which aggregates content from PubMed/MEDLINE, PubMed Central, and other providers under the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM/NCBI). NLM does not claim copyright on abstracts; the original journal publishers or authors may hold rights to the full articles. AI-generated summaries are derived only from the abstract, never the full text, and are always labeled as AI-generated.
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