Liver Cancer Risks Increasing for Hepatitis C

The risk of liver cancer is on the rise for people with hepatitis C. In a new study, the Academia Sinica scientist Michael Ming-Chiao Lai reports that people infected with chronic hepatitis C infection are now up to 10 times more likely to develop liver cancer than previously thought. Previously, people with hepatitis B carried the most risk of developing liver cancer. However, thanks to the hepatitis B vaccine, this risk has now shifted to those with hepatitis C. Combined with a drug therapy that only works in half the patients and no effective vaccine, hepatitis C patients are nearly five times more likely to develop liver disease than those with hepatitis B, and 10 times more likely if they are heavy drinkers with hepatitis C. With numbers like this, and the seriousness of liver cancer, hepatitis C prevention is more important than ever.