The rare liver cancer fibrolamellar carcinoma, or FLC, affects only one out of 5 million people, usually children or young adults with otherwise healthy livers.
Because FLC is so rare, it’s difficult to estimate five-year survival rates, which range between 44 and 68% with surgery and 2 to 17% without surgery. There is no curative therapy for FLC.
Its rarity also makes the disease difficult to study in the lab because tumor samples are few and far between.
“You see maybe four or five cases a year, which means every case is precious and important for researchers trying to understand the disease and what drives the tumor,” said rare-cancer expert Taran Gujral, PhD, an associate professor in the Human Biology Division of Fred Hutch Cancer Center.
