Scientific Reports (Jan 2022)

Trends in hepatocellular carcinoma incident cases in Japan between 1996 and 2019

  • Masahito Nakano,
  • Hiroshi Yatsuhashi,
  • Shigemune Bekki,
  • Yuko Takami,
  • Yasuhito Tanaka,
  • Yoko Yoshimaru,
  • Koichi Honda,
  • Yasuji Komorizono,
  • Masaru Harada,
  • Michihiko Shibata,
  • Shotaro Sakisaka,
  • Satoshi Shakado,
  • Kenji Nagata,
  • Tomoharu Yoshizumi,
  • Shinji Itoh,
  • Tetsuro Sohda,
  • Satoshi Oeda,
  • Kazuhiko Nakao,
  • Ryu Sasaki,
  • Tsutomu Yamashita,
  • Akio Ido,
  • Seiichi Mawatari,
  • Makoto Nakamuta,
  • Yoshifusa Aratake,
  • Shuichi Matsumoto,
  • Tatsuji Maeshiro,
  • Takashi Goto,
  • Takuji Torimura

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-05444-z
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 12, no. 1
pp. 1 – 6

Abstract

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Abstract We examined the epidemiological trends, including the distribution of sex, age, and disease etiology, in HCC incident cases, over 24 years. Data of 20,547 HCC patients (1996–2019) were analyzed in this prospective study. We divided the study period into four 6-yearly quarters. HCC etiology was categorized as hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection, HBV + hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, HCV infection, and both negative (non-BC). The incident cases of HCC per quarter of the study period were 4311 (21.0%), 5505 (26.8%), 5776 (28.1%), and 4955 (24.1%), sequentially. Overall, 14,020 (68.2%) patients were male. The number of HCC cases in patients < 60 years, 60–69 years, 70–79 years, and ≥ 80 years were 3711 (18.1%), 6652 (32.4%), 7448 (36.2%), and 2736 (13.3%), respectively. The average age of newly-diagnosed patients increased in each quarter. HCC was associated with HBV, HBV + HCV, and HCV infections and non-BC in 2997 (14.6%), 187 (0.9%), and 12,019 (58.5%), and 5344 (26.0%) cases, respectively. The number of HCV-associated cases decreased in each quarter, while that of non-BC-associated cases increased. HCC incident cases tend to increase in the elderly and in non-BC patients; in contrast, HCC incident cases due to HCV tend to decrease.