Use of Tumor-Activated Hepatic Stellate Cell as a Target for the Preclinical Testing of Anti-Angiogenic Drugs Against Hepatic Tumor Development

The prognosis of patients with advanced liver tumors is very poor, regardless of current treatment schedules based on surgery and/or chemotherapy. Anti-angiogenic therapy represents one of the most promising target-oriented therapeutic approaches. However, because of organ-specific differentiation of liver microvasculature (1 ), the use of non organ-specific models of angiogenesis may not be adequate for screening candidate anti-angiogenic compounds, and only a few preclinical models that are able to provide clinically relevant therapeutic options are available.