Unresectable canine hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) has limited nonsurgical treatment options. Sorafenib is a targeted therapy for unresectable canine HCC. However, there are limited reports on the expression of target genes. Therefore, the efficacy of the targeted therapies for canine HCC remains unclear.

In HCC, the prognosis is generally good when complete surgical resection is possible. Unresectable nodular and diffuse HCC have a poor prognosis and limited nonsurgical treatment options.

 In humans, systemic therapies including targeted therapies are indicated when curative treatment is difficult. Targeted therapy includes the use of conventional molecular targeted agents, hormonal agents, immune checkpoint inhibitors, and targeted cytotoxic therapy.

Despite the high anticancer activity of the targeted therapy, the agents can only be applied to patients with targeted gene mutations or abnormalities. For these targeted genes, the therapeutic agents exert antitumor effects by inhibiting cell proliferation, metastasis, and angiogenesis, reversing multidrug resistance, and inducing apoptosis.

In canine unresectable HCC, sorafenib is used as targeted therapy. However, there are limited reports on the expression status of the target gene.

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Moreover, up regulation of PDGFB is reported in canine HCC as a potential gene for targeted therapy. However, the application of targeted therapy in canine HCC is not clear. Therefore, in this study, we assessed the expression of target genes in canine HCC based on their expression in human tumors.