The General Hospital Corporation

Bryan C Fuchs

Kenneth Tanabe

Hiroshi Kawasaki

This invention relates generally to a therapeutic use of epidermal growth factor receptor inhibitors to reduce fibrosis, e.g., liver fibrosis, or pre-cirrhosis in a subject.

Methods of treating liver fibrosis and pre-cirrhosis with epidermal growth factor receptor inhibitors

The present invention relates to diagnostic and prognostic methods to determine the likelihood of a subject who has a inflammatory disease or liver disease of developing cancer. In particular, the present invention relates to methods for identifying subjects with increased susceptibility to developing cancer, such as hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) where the subject has an inflammatory disease, such as, but not limited to cirrhosis, by identifying a variance or polymorphism in the human EGF gene. In particular, the methods of the present invention relate to identifying subjects with increased susceptibility to developing cancer such as HCC, where the subject has an inflammatory disease, such as but not limited to cirrhosis, and the subject is identified to have a single nucleotide polymorphism 61A&#x3e;G in the 5'UTR of the EGF gene. Alternatively, the methods of the present invention relate to identifying subjects with increased susceptibility to developing cancer such as HCC, where the subject has an inflammatory disease, such as but not limited to cirrhosis, and the subject is identified to have increased expression of EGF as compared to a reference level of EGF expression. The present invention also relates to administering an effective amount of an anti-cancer therapy to subjects identified to have an increased susceptibility of developing cancer such as HCC by the methods as disclosed herein, and kits to identify a subject with a 61A&#x3e;G polymorphism in the 5&#x2032;UTR of the EGF gene or kits to determine increased EGF expression in subjects with chronic inflammatory disease.

Growing community of inventors

Quincy, MA, United States of America

Bryan C Fuchs