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Observational Study
. 2023 Mar 22;30(3):3557-3570.
doi: 10.3390/curroncol30030271.

Alcoholic Liver Disease-Related Hepatocellular Carcinoma: Characteristics and Comparison to General Slovak Hepatocellular Cancer Population

Dominik Šafčák  1   2 , Sylvia Dražilová  2   3 , Jakub Gazda  2   3 , Igor Andrašina  1 , Svetlana Adamcová-Selčanová  4 , Radovan Barila  5 , Michal Mego  6 , Marek Rác  7 , Ľubomír Skladaný  4 , Miroslav Žigrai  8 , Martin Janičko  2   3 , Peter Jarčuška  2   3
Affiliations
Observational Study

Alcoholic Liver Disease-Related Hepatocellular Carcinoma: Characteristics and Comparison to General Slovak Hepatocellular Cancer Population

Dominik Šafčák et al. Curr Oncol. .

Abstract

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) has multiple molecular classes that are associated with distinct etiologies and, besides particular molecular characteristics, that also differ in clinical aspects. We aim to characterize the clinical aspects of alcoholic liver disease-related HCC by a retrospective observational study that included all consequent patients diagnosed with MRI or histologically verified HCC in participating centers from 2010 to 2016. A total of 429 patients were included in the analysis, of which 412 patients (96%) had cirrhosis at the time of diagnosis. The most common etiologies were alcoholic liver disease (ALD) (48.3%), chronic hepatitis C (14.9%), NAFLD (12.6%), and chronic hepatitis B (10%). Patients with ALD-related HCC were more commonly males, more commonly had cirrhosis that was in more advanced stages, and had poorer performance status. Despite these results, no differences were observed in the overall (median 8.1 vs. 8.5 months) and progression-free survival (median 4.9 vs. 5.7 months). ALD-HCC patients within BCLC stage 0-A less frequently received potentially curative treatment as compared to the control HCC patients (62.2% vs. 87.5%, p = 0.017); and in patients with ALD-HCC liver function (MELD score) seemed to have a stronger influence on the prognosis compared to the control group HCC. Systemic inflammatory indexes were strongly associated with survival in the whole cohort. In conclusion, alcoholic liver disease is the most common cause of hepatocellular carcinoma in Slovakia, accounting for almost 50% of cases; and patients with ALD-related HCC more commonly had cirrhosis that was in more advanced stages and had poorer performance status, although no difference in survival between ALD-related and other etiology-related HCC was observed.

Keywords: alcohol; cancer; liver cirrhosis.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flowchart of the study analysis according to STROBE guidelines.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Overall survival according to study groups by Kaplan–Meier analysis.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Kaplan–Meier survival curves for the whole cohort, split by systemic inflammatory index categories.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Kaplan–Meier survival curves for whole cohort, split by neutrophil–lymphocyte ratio categories.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Kaplan–Meier survival curves for whole cohort, split by thrombocyte–lymphocyte ratio categories.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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