Hepatitis B and C viruses and their interaction in the origin of hepatocellular carcinoma
E. Kaklamani, D. Trichopoulos, A. Tzonou, X. Zavitsanos, Y. Koumantaki, A. Hatzakis, C. C. Hsieh and S. Hatziyannis
Department of Epidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Mass. 02115.
Serum taken from patients in a case-control study in Athens, Greece, was
used to examine the interactive roles of hepatitis B virus (HBV) and
hepatitis C virus (HCV) in the origin of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). An
enzyme immunoassay for anti-HCV was used to test serum taken from 185 cases
with HCC, 35 cases with metastatic liver cancer (MLC), and 432 hospital
controls. Weakly positive anti-HCV results were more strongly related to
MLC than to HCC, implying that these anti-HCV results are false positive.
By contrast, strongly positive anti-HCV results were significantly related
to HCC (relative risk [RR], 6.3), whereas no significant association was
evident for MLC (RR, 0.6). The association of anti-HCV with HCC was
substantially higher among subjects whose radioimmunoassay was positive for
hepatitis B surface antigen (RR, 20.0) than among those whose
radioimmunoassay was negative for this marker (RR, 4.8). These findings
indicate that HCV infection has an interactive role in the origin of HCC.
