HEPATOCELLULAR CARCINOMA: CLINICAL AND EPIDEMIOLOGICAL FEATURES IN VERACRUZ

Introduction and Objectives

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most frequent liver tumor and it occupies sixth place of the malignant neoplasms worldwide. In the last decades, In Mexico has been reported an increase of 95% in incidence and 14% in mortality, becoming the second most lethal neoplasm after pancreatic cancer. Few studies describe the HCC epidemiological behavior in our population.

Objective

To describe the clinical and epidemiological features of HCC in patients from Veracruz city.

Material and methods

A descriptive and retrospective study was done from a patient database with diagnosed HCC by imaging and, if required, with a biopsy confirmation between 2005 and 2021 in Veracruz. Central tendency and dispersion measures were done for the analysis.

Results

130 patients with HCC were studied, the mean diagnosis age was 66.9±11 (29-62 rate), with a female genre lead 1.2:1. Eighty-six patients (66.2%) had cirrhosis at the diagnosis, 32 (24.6%) were secondary to chronic alcohol consumption, 8 (6.2%) with hepatitis C infection, 20 (15.4%) MAFLD/ Cryptogenic and 3 (2.3%) with hepatitis B infection. The comorbidities reported were overweight in 58 patients (43.9%), obesity 19 (14.4%), high blood pressure 54 (40.2%) and diabetes mellitus 51 (38.6%). The most frequent biochemical disturbance was hyperbilirubinemia (1.27±1.26). The rest f biochemical features are described in table 1. Sixty-six patients (50%) were found with Child-Pugh A with a MELD score of 9.86±3.0. In this stage, we found 74 patients (56.9%) with Barcelona B, 80% had a lone tumor, the mean tumoral size was 7.13±3.7 cm. 69.2% of patients had a tumoral size greater than 5 cm at the diagnosis.

Discussion

Our results show that the HCC behavior is similar to the reported in previous Mexican studies, predominating in patients with advanced liver injury and tumor outside criteria of local treatment at the diagnosis. The high frequency of comorbidities associated with metabolic syndrome is remarkable as one of the main risk factors with chronic C virus infection.

Conclusion

HCC in Mexico has been increasing. It shows similar epidemiological features with the reported in other populations due to its relationship with metabolic risk. Early screening in high-risk patients results in greater resectability and survival.

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.