中国结合医学杂志（英文版）Chinese Journal of Integrative Medicine

Author Name	Affiliation	E-mail
Yuewen Gong	Faculties of Pharmacy and Medicine, University of Manitoba, 750 McDermot Avenue Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, R3E 0T5	ygong@cc.umanitoba.ca

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Abstract:

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.