Hepatitis C Virus May Increase Pancreatic Cancer Risk
14 January 2009
A new study shows that infection with hepatitis C virus increases a person's risk for a highly fatal cancer of the biliary tree, the bile-carrying pathway between the liver and pancreas. More than 4 million Americans are infected with hepatitis C virus, which causes chronic hepatitis, cirrhosis and liver cancer. However, the associations between the virus and other potentially related cancers are less clear.
To better understand the associations between hepatitis C virus and these cancers, researchers led by Hashem El-Serag of Baylor College of Medicine, conducted a retrospective cohort study of more than 718,000 U.S. veterans who were treated at Veterans Affairs medical facilities between October 1, 1988 and September 30, 2004. Among them, 146,394 were infected with hepatitis C virus and 572,293 were not. Uninfected subjects were matched to infected ones by sex, age and type and date of visit.
The researchers followed the subjects for an average of 2.3 years to determine the incidence these cancers. They found that "risk for biliary tree cancer in the hepatitis C virus -infected cohort, although low (4 per 100,000 person-years), was more than double that in the hepatitis C virus -uninfected cohort."
The study is the first to formally examine the association between hepatitis C virus and pancreatic cancer. It is also the first time a significant association has been detected between hepatitis C virus and this type of cancer in a large cohort study. The findings may lead to greater examination of rare malignancies.
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References:
1.El-Serag, et al. Risk of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Cancers Following Hepatitis C Virus Infection: A Population-based Study of U.S. Veterans. Hepatology ; January 2009.
2. Image from National Cancer Institute.
