Source: UCSF Today
March 25, 2008

Turning the Tide of Liver Cancer Among Asians

A largely preventable cancer is expected to become more common in the United States in coming years.

No, it's not lung cancer -- the decades-long decline in smoking rates finally is leading to fewer lung cancer deaths.

It's liver cancer.

"It's deadly and it's preventable," says UCSF investigator Tung Nguyen, MD.

The cause of more than eight in 10 liver cancers in the United States is chronic infection with the hepatitis B or hepatitis C virus. The number of new hepatitis infections is declining. But just as there has been a lag between the decline in smoking and the drop in lung cancers, it may take many years before the trend toward fewer hepatitis cases and better hepatitis treatments leads to fewer liver cancers. Liver cancers arise a few decades after infection, and a few decades ago, hepatitis infections were still on the rise.

Nguyen -- who emigrated as a child from Vietnam -- is fighting hepatitis in Bay Area Asian communities. Through outreach and training of key community members and through campaigns in ethnic media, Nguyen and his collaborators aim to help reverse the US liver cancer trend as quickly as possible.

Hepatitis B Is Common
Why focus on Asians? Hepatitis B is common in many parts of the globe, including Asia. Because of this, liver cancer is the third most common cause of cancer death worldwide. Immigrants from Asian countries are infected at high rates. So too are their children. For instance, in San Francisco, where according to the 2000 census nearly one in three people is Asian, an estimated one in 10 Chinese is infected with hepatitis B.

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