Clin Mol Hepatol.  2016 Sep;22(3):319-326. 10.3350/cmh.2016.0045.

The assessment of hepatocellular carcinoma risk in patients with chronic hepatitis B under antiviral therapy

• Varbobitis I
• Papatheodoridis GV

• KMID: 2373131
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.3350/cmh.2016.0045

Abstract

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a primary concern for patients with chronic hepatitis B (CHB). Antiviral therapy has been reasonably the focus of interest for HCC prevention, with most studies reporting on the role of the chronologically preceding agents, interferon-alfa and lamivudine. The impact of interferon-alfa on the incidence of HCC is clearer in Asian patients and those with compensated cirrhosis, as several meta-analyses have consistently shown HCC risk reduction, compared to untreated patients. Nucleos(t)ide analogues also seem to have a favorable impact on the HCC incidence when data from randomized or matched controlled studies are considered. Given that the high-genetic barrier agents, entecavir and tenofovir, are mainly used in CHB because of their favorable effects on the overall long-term outcome of such patients, the most clinically important challenge is the identification of patients who require close HCC surveillance despite on-therapy virological remission. Several risk scores have been developed for HCC prediction in CHB patients. Most of them, such as GAG-HCC, CU-HCC and REACH-B, have been developed and validated in Asian untreated and treated CHB patients, but they do not seem to offer good predictability in Caucasian CHB patients for whom a newer score, PAGE-B, has been recently developed.

Keyword

Hepatitis B; Hepatocellular carcinoma; Interferon-alfa; Antivirals

MeSH Terms

Antiviral Agents/adverse effects/*therapeutic use
Carcinoma, Hepatocellular/etiology
Hepatitis B, Chronic/*drug therapy
Humans
Interferon-alpha/adverse effects/therapeutic use
Liver Cirrhosis/complications
Liver Neoplasms/etiology
Nucleotides/adverse effects/chemistry/therapeutic use
Risk Factors
Antiviral Agents
Interferon-alpha
Nucleotides