Background: Hepatitis E virus (HEV) infection poses a significant health risk across diverse demographic groups, particularly among pregnant women, immunocompromised individuals, patients with chronic liver disease, and the elderly. The global epidemiology of HEV reveals distinct patterns of prevalence, transmission, and disease severity among these populations, necessitating targeted vaccination strategies. The licensing of the Hecolin (HEV 239) vaccine offers promise, but gaps in clinical trial data and varying immune responses in high-risk groups challenge its widespread applicability. Scope: This review synthesizes data on HEV’s epidemiology, discusses the susceptibility of vulnerable populations, evaluates the efficacy and safety of HEV 239, and highlights the urgent need for clinical research tailored to these groups. Key findings underscore the complexity of vaccine response influenced by immunological, physiological, and environmental factors. Additionally, potential advancements in vaccine technology, including the development of broad-spectrum vaccines and innovative delivery systems, are discussed as future directions. Strategies: Addressing regulatory, economic, and logistical barriers remains crucial for effective HEV vaccination programs. A multidisciplinary approach integrating public health policy, rigorous clinical evaluations, and collaborative frameworks is essential to ensure equitable access to HEV vaccination, ultimately improving health outcomes on a global scale.
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains the most common malignancy to threaten public health globally. With advances in artificial intelligence techniques, radiomics for HCC management provides a novel perspective to solve unmet needs in clinical settings, and reveals pixel-level radiological information for medical imaging big data, correlating the radiological phenotype with targeted clinical issues. Conventional radiomics pipelines depend on handcrafted engineering features, and further deep learning-based radiomics pipelines are supplemented with deep features calculated via self-learning strategies. During the past decade, radiomics has been widely applied in accurate diagnoses and pathological or biological behavior evaluation, as well as in prognosis prediction. In this review, we systematically introduce the main pipelines of artificial intelligence-based radiomics and their efficacy in the clinical studies of HCC.
24 August 2026 in Journal of Translational Medicine
Chronic systemic stress (CSS) is associated with the progression of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), yet the molecular mechanisms linking physiological exha
The rising incidence of liver cirrhosis among women of childbearing age is associated with increased maternal morbidity and potential adverse maternal health outcomes. This study aimed to analyze temporal trends of cirrhosis incidence and project future epidemiological patterns to guide targeted prevention and control strategies. We extracted liver cirrhosis incidence data from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021, covering 204 countries and territories from 1992 to 2021. The analytical population included females aged 15 to 49 years. Trends across age groups, periods, and birth cohorts were analyzed using the age-period-cohort model. The Bayesian age-period-cohort model was utilized to forecast epidemiological trends through 2030. Between 1992 and 2021, global cirrhosis trends varied by etiology: alcohol-related cases increased (14,566.88–19,340.29) despite declining age-standardized incidence rates (1.22–0.94 per 100,000), while nonalcoholic fatty liver disease-related cirrhosis showed a continuous upward trend in both case counts and age-standardized incidence rate between 1992 and 2021 (reaching 16,095,135.50 cases and 831.02 per 100,000 population in 2021), with projections indicating it may rise to approximately 19.63 million cases (95% uncertainty interval = 16.36 million–22.89 million) by 2030. Low socio-demographic index regions bore the highest burden. Projections through 2030 suggest a potential rising global burden, particularly for alcohol-related cases, with divergent trends projected for China (decreasing) and India (increasing). The global incidence of liver cirrhosis among women of childbearing age is rising, in population-level correlation with the growing burden of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and regional gaps in viral and alcohol-related cirrhosis etiologies. These findings highlight the potential need for region-specific prevention strategies. Limitations include Global Burden of Disease data quality, ecological bias, and insufficient pregnancy-specific data for detailed incidence trend analysis.