Hepatitis C virus infection is associated with the development of hepatocellular carcinoma.
A possible causative role for the recently discovered hepatitis C virus (HCV) in the development of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) was investigated by assay of sera from HCC patients in Japan for antibodies to a recombinant HCV antigen and to hepatitis B virus (HBV) antigens. Among the 253 HCC patients examined, 156 (61.7%) had no serum markers of either a previous or a current HBV infection (group I), 46 (18.2%) were negative for HBV surface antigen but positive for anti-HBV surface and/or anti-HBV core antibody, indicating the occurrence of a previous, transient HBV infection (group II), and 51 (20.2%) were chronically infected HBV carriers as evidenced by positivity for HBV surface antigen (group III). The prevalence of HCV antibody in group I (68.6%) and II (58.7%) patients was significantly higher than for group III (3.9%) or in 148 additional patients with other (non-HCC) cancers (10.1%) (P less than 0.01). Thus, there appears to be a strong association between HCV infection and the development of HCC, particularly in patients for which HBV infection cannot be implicated as a causative factor. The data also suggest an additional mode of transmission for HCV other than blood transfusion, since a history of blood transfusion was shown in only about 30% of the HCV antibody-positive HCC patients in groups I and II. A high prevalence of HCV antibody was also shown among patients with HCC whose disease was originally thought to be due to very high ethanol consumption.
Saito
I
I
Department of Enteroviruses, National Institute of Health, Tokyo, Japan.
Miyamura
T
T
Ohbayashi
A
A
Harada
H
H
Katayama
T
T
Kikuchi
S
S
Watanabe
Y
Y
Koi
S
S
Onji
M
M
Ohta
Y
Y
D001803:Blood Transfusion; D006528:Carcinoma, Hepatocellular / Q000150:complications*; D005260:Female; D006509:Hepatitis B / Q000175:diagnosis; D006510:Hepatitis B Antibodies / Q000032:analysis; D006514:Hepatitis B Surface Antigens / Q000032:analysis; D006526:Hepatitis C / Q000150:complications* / Q000175:diagnosis; D006525:Hepatitis, Viral, Human / Q000150:complications*; D006801:Humans; D008113:Liver Neoplasms / Q000150:complications*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged
D006510:Hepatitis B Antibodies; D006514:Hepatitis B Surface Antigens