Int. J. Biol. Sci. 2020, Vol. 16 1551 Ivyspring International Publisher International Journal of Biological Sciences 2020; 16(9): 1551-1562. doi: 10.7150/ijbs.44024 Review Circulating tumor DNA as an emerging liquid biopsy biomarker for early diagnosis and therapeutic monitoring in hepatocellular carcinoma Xiaolin Wu1, Jiahui Li1, Asmae Gassa2, Denise Buchner1, Hakan Alakus1, Qiongzhu Dong3, Ning Ren4, Ming Liu5, Margarete Odenthal6, Dirk Stippel1, Christiane Bruns1, Yue Zhao1,7, and Roger Wahba1 1. Department of General, Visceral, Cancer and Transplantation Surgery, University Hospital of Cologne, Kerpener Straße 62, 50937, Cologne, Germany. 2. Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Heart Center, University Hospital of Cologne, Germany, Kerpener Straße 62, 5.937 Cologne, Germany. 3. Department of General Surgery, Huashan Hospital & Cancer Metastasis Institute & Institutes of Biomedical Sciences, Fudan University, 200032, Shanghai, P.R. China. 4. Liver Cancer Institute & Zhongshan Hospital; Department of Surgery, Institute of Fudan-Minhang Academic Health System, Minhang Branch, Zhongshan Hospital, Fudan University, 200032, Shanghai, P.R. China. 5. Affiliated Cancer Hospital & Institute of Guangzhou Medical University; Key Laboratory of Protein Modification and Degradation, School of Basic Medical Sciences, 510095, Guangzhou, P.R. China. 6. Institute of Pathology, University Hospital of Cologne, 50937, Cologne, Germany. 7. Department of General, Visceral und Vascular Surgery, Otto-von-Guericke University, 39120, Magdeburg, Germany. Corresponding authors: Roger Wahba (
[email protected]; Tel: +49-221-478-4803); Yue Zhao (yue.zhao @uk-koeln.de; Tel: +49-221-478-30601). © The author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).