A study on the role of HCV infection in aetiology of primary liver cancer and it's interaction with HBsAg carrying

A nested case-control study was performed to investigate the role of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection in the aetiology of primary liver cancer (PLC), and the interaction between HCV and HBV infection. Subjects were chosen from members of a cohort study held in past years. They were all male, more than 20 years of age, with serum specimens drawn and stored at −20°C. Every death of PLC, occurred since then, as a ‘case’ (78 in total), was compared with no more than 4 matched controls chosen from the cohort members who were still alive and free of PLC. ELISA technique was used to test for anti-HCV in stored serum samples of cases and controls. The serum HBsAg status were directly quoted from orginal cohort records. Result showed that anti-HCV prevalence rates were 33.3% (26/78) of the cases and 15.3% (40/262) of their matched controls. The PLC risk of HCV infected members were about 3 times that risk of the other. About 1 quarter of the PLC deaths in studied population could be attributed to having been infected by HCV. As 2 of the main PLC risk factors, HCV and HBV infection didn't obviously confound each other. The distribution of HCV in the population didn't influence that of HBV, and vice versa.