In this article
At the 2017 annual meeting of the American Liver Disease Association, a large observational study reported that eradicating hepatitis C virus (HCV) through direct antiviral (DAA) therapy reduces the risk of liver cancer by 71%. In the United States, most primary liver cancer occurs in people infected with HCV, making the eradication of this virus a potentially powerful tool in liver cancer prevention.
The study analyzed 62,051 HCV-infected patients who received 83,695 antiviral treatments, with an average follow-up of 6.1 years. Among the four patient groups tracked, those with cirrhosis who failed treatment had the highest liver cancer incidence at 3.25 per 100 person-years. Patients with cirrhosis who achieved a sustained virological response (SVR) had a rate of 1.97, while those without cirrhosis who failed treatment had 0.87, and those without cirrhosis who achieved SVR had the lowest rate at just 0.24 per 100 person-years. Multivariate analysis confirmed that SVR was significantly associated with a lower risk of liver cancer across all treatment types — DAA alone, DAA combined with interferon, and interferon only.
The findings directly address a controversial claim from a study presented at the European Liver Disease Congress the previous year, which suggested that HCV patients treated with DAA may have a higher rate of liver cancer recurrence. Researchers note that this conclusion conflicts with the well-established biological relationship between HCV and liver cancer, which strongly suggests that eliminating the virus should reduce — not increase — cancer risk.
The University of Washington researchers emphasize that while patients who had already developed cirrhosis or liver fibrosis before HCV eradication may still face some residual cancer risk, the overall conclusion of this large observational study is clear: DAA eradication of HCV reduces the risk of liver cancer, and there is no credible basis for concern that it increases it.
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About Sai Sree
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