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Fassio, et al. Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), the most common primary liver cancer around the world, is one of the most important cancer-related causes of death in developing countries. It has been estimated that the incidence of this disease has been arising due to several regional and genetic factors in western countries. Demographical studies carried out in the United States (US) have shown that Hispanic population have higher rates of chronic liver diseases including an increase in the incidence and mortality of HCC specially among Hispanic women. The aim of this study was firstly to determine the underlying cause of HCC among patients in Latin America and also to evaluate the staging of HCC and the percentage of patients receiving specific treatment. This is a prospective multicentre study organized by Latin American Association for the Study of the Liver, involving 240 patients of 9 Latin American countries for a period of 18 months. The authors found a higher prevalence of HCC in men than in women; the median age was 64 years; 85.4% of patients had underlying cirrhosis. Furthermore 38% of the patients had Hepatitis C virus (HCV) chronic infection, 28% chronic alcoholism and 14% Hepatitis B virus (HBV) chronic infection. HCV, alcohol, cryptogenic cirrhosis and HBV were the most common etiologies for HCC. Interestingly, male patients had higher prevalence of alcohol intake associated to other etiological factors (p < 0.001). Regarding to the Okuda classification, stage 1 was the most prevalent with 117 cases; and according to the Barcelona-Clinic Liver Cancer (BCLC) staging system, stage A was the most common, finding significant differences between the proportions of patients in the two classifications (p < 0.01). In regards to treatment, only 68.3% of patients received specific therapy, most of them, transarterial che moembolization. One of the study limitations is the selection bias since the studied population was restricted to tertiary medical centers, in addition most of the patients came fron only four different countries, mostly fron South America, and therefore the sample was not comparable between them.

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2010-05-11   |   734 visitas   |   Evalua este artículo 0 valoraciones

Vol. 9 Núm.1. Enero-Marzo 2010 Pags. 5-6 Ann Hepatol 2010; 9(1)