Research ArticleThe trends in incidence of primary liver cancer caused by specific etiologies: Results from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016 and implications for liver cancer prevention
Graphical abstract
Introduction
Liver cancer is a common lethal malignancy that afflicts in excess of 1 million people and caused 800,000 deaths globally in 2016.1 It has been well documented that the incidence of liver cancer varies considerably across the world, with the highest incidence observed in East Asia. In contrast, the incidence in America is nearly 5- to 10-fold lower than the incidence observed in East Asia.2 Recent decreases in the incidence of liver cancer have been reported in China and Japan.[3], [4], [5] However, newly diagnosed cases and the age standardized incidence rate of liver cancer have increased on a global level during the last few decades, albeit significant public health efforts have been made to counter this problem.[2], [6], [7]
The underlying etiologies for liver cancer have been extensively investigated and widely recognized in previous epidemiological studies.8 Therefore the heterogeneous incidence pattern of liver cancer was mainly determined by the prevalence of risk factors across different regions. For example, endemic hepatitis B virus (HBV) and development of chronic hepatitis B infection has been the main driver of liver cancer in China.[9], [10] Whereas in South Korea and Japan, liver cancer is mainly caused by hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, with HBV infection only accounting for approximately 15–20% of the total cases.11 Knowing the pattern of liver cancer incidence as well as the temporal trends facilitates the initiation of more targeted prevention strategies, thereby promoting the precise prevention of liver cancer.
The Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study assessed the liver cancer burden in 195 countries and territories across the world, and provided a unique opportunity to understand the landscape of liver cancer.1 In a recent study, Akinyemiju et al. described the global landscape of primary liver cancer mortality using the data derived from the GBD Study 2015.2 In the current study, we retrieved detailed information on the incidence of liver cancer caused by 4 major etiologies from the GBD Study 2016. We further assessed the disease burden of liver cancer by determining temporal trends of liver cancer incidence caused by specific etiologies from 1990 to 2016 at global, regional, and national levels. Our results can serve as an important extension and complement to the previous study,2 while also assisting in the design of targeted strategies in liver cancer prevention tailored to different countries.
Section snippets
Study data
Annual incident cases and age standardized incidences of liver cancer from 1990 to 2016, by sex, region, country, and etiology (hepatitis B, hepatitis C, alcohol consumption, and other causes), were collected from the Global Health Data Exchange (GHDx) query tool (http://ghdx.healthdata.org/gbd-results-tool).12 Data from a total of 195 countries and territories were available. These countries and territories were then categorized into 5 regions in terms of socio-demographic index (SDI),
Global liver cancer burden
The ASR of liver cancer varies considerably across the world, with the highest ASR observed in Mongolia (108.37 per 100,000 in 2016), followed by Taiwan (China) and Gambia (Fig. 1A). As for the absolute number, more than half of newly diagnosed cancer cases were recorded in China in 2016 (570,000), followed by Japan and the USA.
Globally, the incident cases of liver cancer increased 114.0% (95% CI 108.4%–119.8%) from 471,000 in 1990 to 1,007,800 in 2016. The most pronounced increase was observed
Discussion
The heterogeneous pattern in risk factor exposures results in a markedly diverse liver cancer incidence across the world, and makes the prevention of liver cancer complex.[10], [16], [17] In the current study, we comprehensively analyzed the temporal trends in primary liver cancer (more than the hepatocellular carcinoma) incidence caused by several of the most common etiologies at the global, regional, and national level. In general, liver cancer was increased in both incidence and cancer cases
Acknowledgement
We appreciate the works by the Global Burden of Disease study 2016 collaborators. We also would like to thank Prof. Shunzhang Yu, Prof. Na He and Prof. Genming Zhao from School of Public Health, Fudan University; Prof. Jiucun Wang from School of Life Sciences, Fudan University; Prof. Weiming Ye from Karolinska Institutet; Prof. Ming Lu from Qilu Hospital of Shandong University, who provided insightful methodological advice and wisdom throughout the study.
Financial support
This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (grant number: 2017YFC0907002, 2017YFC0907501, 2017YFC211700); the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant numbers: 81772170, 81502870); the key basic research grants from Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality (grant number: 16JC1400500); the International S&T Cooperation Program of China (grant number: 2015DFE32790); and Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Major Project
Conflict of interest
The authors declare no conflicts of interest that pertain to this work.
Please refer to the accompanying ICMJE disclosure forms for further details.
Authors’ contributions
Study design: TZ, XC. Data collection: ZL, HY, QF, NC. Data analyses: ZL, YJ. Results interpretations: All authors. Manuscript writing: ZL, YJ, TZ, XC, CS, HY, LJ. Manuscript proofing: TZ, XC, CS, LJ.
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These authors contributed equally to this work.