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Hepatoblastoma is an uncommon malignant liver cancer occurring in infants and children and composed of tissue resembling fetal liver cells, mature liver cells, or bile duct cells. They usually present with an abdominal mass. The disease is most commonly diagnosed during a child's first three years of life.〔http://hepatoblastoma.mditv.com/generalinfo〕 Alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) levels are commonly elevated, but when AFP is not elevated at diagnosis the prognosis is poor. ==Pathophysiology== Hepatoblastomas originate from immature liver precursor cells, usually unifocal and affect the right lobe of the liver more often than the left lobe, can metastasize. Individuals with familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP), a syndrome of early-onset colonic polyps and adenocarcinoma, frequently develop hepatoblastomas. Also beta-catenin mutations have been shown to be common in sporadic hepatoblastomas, occurring in as many as 67% of patients. Recently on other components of the Wnt signaling pathway have also demonstrated a likely role for constitutive activation of this pathway in the etiology of hepatoblastoma.〔 Accumulating evidence suggests that hepatoblastoma is derived from a pluripotent stem cell. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Hepatoblastoma」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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