Dear colleagues,

For many years, EASL and AASLD have been jointly organising monothematic endpoint meetings, bringing together leading experts from both side of the Atlantic. Various topics have been explored at these events, including alcohol-related liver disease, viral hepatitis, and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. We are delighted to welcome you to this year’s virtual meeting on clinical trial design and endpoints in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). 

Despite recent advances in its medical management, HCC remains a major healthcare problem. HCC prevention, early detection, and clinical management are challenging in a space where scientific advances are occurring rapidly. At this joint meeting, delegates will discuss current trends in prevention, risk stratification, and local and systemic treatments for HCC. The event will emphasise topics related to the role of the immune system in carcinogenesis and the treatment of HCC. It will value the growing role of patient-reported outcomes on trial design and treatment decisions. This event will also explore how to incorporate molecular markers in treatment decision for HCC patients. Finally, it will discuss how these changes have impacted clinical trial design and endpoints in HCC research.  

Overall, this intercontinental meeting goes beyond the scope of previous meetings, by defining today’s and tomorrow’s practices in a rapidly changing landscape of treatment options. The programme is designed to not only define current state-of-the-art practice, but also to explore emerging strategies, and to suggest the way the next key trials should be designed. It is a must for clinicians and scientists involved in the clinical management or investigation of HCC, wanting to improve their current practice, and eager to understand what tomorrow is going to bring. 

 We look forward to stimulating and educational exchanges with you during the meeting

Dr María Reig
Dr Amit Singal
Prof. Dr Christian Toso
Dr Augusto Villanueva