Cancer warning from hepatitis C

Patients with hepatitis C (HCV) are not only at risk of liver cancer but also "attacked" by many other cancers.

This study was recently published at the 50th European Association for the Study of the Liver International Congress, held in Vienna, Austria.

According to researchers, people infected with HCV have a 2.5 times higher risk of developing liver cancer than people without HCV, and a 2 times higher risk of developing other cancers when liver cancer has been ruled out - Photo: flickr.com

Accordingly, scientists from Kaiser Permanente Southern California (KPSC) analyzed data on cancer patients enrolled at KPSC from 2008 to 2012, including HCV-infected and HCV-uninfected patients aged 18 and older.

Research results show that patients infected with HCV are not only at risk of being "attacked" by liver cancer but also many other cancers such as non-Hodgkin lymphoma, kidney cancer, prostate cancer...

The research team determined that, among 2,213 HCV-infected cancer patients, excluding those with liver cancer, the remaining 1,654 patients had other cancers.

Among the 84,419 cancer patients not infected with HCV, after excluding liver cancer patients, about 83,795 people were "attacked" by other cancers.

Based on the results of this study, scientists have calculated that patients infected with HCV have a 2.5 times higher risk of developing liver cancer than those not infected with HCV. After excluding liver cancer, the rate of patients infected with HCV being "attacked" by other cancers is 2 times higher than that of people not infected with HCV.

Dr. Lisa Nyberg - head of the research team said, "The results of this study show that the rate of cancer is increasing in the group of hepatitis C patients, so there is a strong correlation between hepatitis C and the risk of cancer. This is also considered as a warning for us to prevent and limit factors that can cause hepatitis C infection to the lowest level."

Dr Laurent Castera - Deputy Secretary of the European Association for the Study of the Liver emphasized that, "there is still a long way to go for us to do more in-depth research to find effective treatments for this complex and dangerous disease of hepatitis C".

It is known that previously, Medical News Today also reported on a study published in the journal Science Translational Medicine (USA) stating that a hepatitis C vaccine was clinically tested by scientists at Oxford University (UK) in phase 1 and showed promising results. Currently, this vaccine is also being promoted for testing in the next phases.

According to Alobacsi.vn