Identifying the targets for treatment of liver fibrosis and hepatocellular carcinoma from both Western medicine and Chinese medicine.

Liver fibrosis and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) are emerging health problems worldwide. Number of death due to HCC was steadily increased during the last decade. Although liver fibrosis and HCC have been investigated extensively, there are no successful and/or satisfactory therapies especially for patients with HCC. From our understanding of both Western medicine and Chinese medicine, it could identify the targets in liver fibrosis and HCC for intervention with Chinese medicine such as bone morphogenetic protein 4 (BMP-4). BMP-4 expression was significantly increased in both liver fibrosis and HCC and saponin class of certain Chinese herbs could regulate its expression. Therefore, BMP-4 could be one of the targets for treatment of liver fibrosis and HCC from integrative medicine.