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Figure 1. Liquid biopsies and their clinical applications. A: Liquid biopsy is an approach for detecting and analyzing DNA and RNA in biological fluids, such as serum, plasma, urine and saliva. Being a minimally invasive procedure, it offers the possibility of performing repeated sampling over time, thus providing a practical method for patient surveillance. Blood plasma or serum from patients contain cancer derived material, such as CTCs, ctDNA, miRNAs and other RNAs; B: analysis of such DNA/RNA content can provide evidences on the presence of HCC at an early stage, assessment of prognosis and patients’ monitoring during and after therapy, thus helping the clinical management of patients at different phases of disease. CTC: circulating tumor cell; ctDNA: cell-free tumor DNA; ncRNA: non-coding RNA