Early recognition of hepatocellular carcinoma

Abstract

Primary liver cancer (PLC) is a malignant disease which is difficult to detect in its early stages and has very poor prognosis. Although relatively uncommon among Caucasians it is one of the major malignancies in many countries throughout the world, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and the Far East. It accounts for 65.5% of all malignant disease in men and 31% of malignant tumors in women among Shangaan blacks in South Africa (1). It is the third major cause of cancer death in males and the fourth among females in China (2); it ranked third and fifth in these groups, respectively, in Japan in 1983 (3). Of PLC, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the major histological type followed in frequency by cholangiocellular carcinoma-the ratio of HCC to cholangiocellular carcinoma varies from 5:l to nearly 401 (4). In other words, the major malignant killer in the high PLC incidence areas is HCC.