Increased Prevalence of HTLV-I Infection in Patients with Hepatocellular Carcinoma Associated with Hepatitis C Virus |
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Authors: | Akihiko Okayama Toshihiro Maruyama Nobuyoshi Tachibana Katsuhiro Hayashi Tohru Kitamura Nancy Mueller Hirohito Tsubouchi |
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Institution: | Second Department of Internal Medicine, Miyazaki Medical School, 5200 Kihara, Kiyotake-cho, Miyazaki 889-16;Department of Epidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health, 677 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA |
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Abstract: | The progression from chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection to hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) has been reported. We evaluated whether co-infection with the human T-lymphotropic virus type I (HTLV-I) might be associated with this transition in a cross-sectional analysis of 127 patients with HCV-chronic hepatitis (mean age=51.7) and 43 patients with HCV-associated HCC (mean age=62.4); the seroprevalence of anti-HTLV-I was 9.5% and 30.2%, respectively. For subjects 50 years or older, the seroprevalence of anti-HTLV-I in HCC patients was 13/41 (31.7%) which was significantly higher than that in chronic hepatitis patients (6/82, 7.3%) ( P =0.001). The relative risk (RR) of association was 12.8 ( P =0.0004) among the males, however, no association was evident among the females, RR=1.3 ( P =0.80). The increased prevalence of HTLV-I positivity among the HCC cases could not be attributed to a higher rate of prior transfusion. These data suggest that co-infection with HTLV-I may contribute to the development of HCC among patients with HCV-induced chronic liver diseases in a highly HTLV-I-endemic area. |
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Keywords: | Human T-lymphotropic virus Hepatitis C virus Hepatocellular carcinoma |
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