Named viruses that can cause liver cancer

Hepatitis B and C viruses cause inflammatory liver diseases that can take chronic long-term forms, transforming into liver cirrhosis and malignant tumors, most often hepatocellular cancer, Lyudmila Mikhaleva, Director of the Avtsyn Research Institute of Human Morphology at the B.V. Petrovsky Russian Scientific Center of Surgery, Chief Researcher at the Reference Center for Infectious and Viral Oncopathology, and Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told "Gazeta.Ru".

"For example, being a carrier of hepatitis B virus increases the risk of liver cancer by 100 times, and with cirrhosis against the background of hepatitis B - by 1000 times compared to uninfected people. Chronic hepatitis C increases the risk of liver cancer by 20 times. And a combined infection with hepatitis B and C viruses increases the risk of cancer by 165 times. This is a very serious problem for medicine," the doctor explained.

According to global statistics, more than ⅔ of liver cancer cases are associated with hepatitis B and C viruses.

"At the same time, liver cancer is a fairly common tumor worldwide, which progresses very aggressively and is difficult to treat. On average, patients with this disease live without treatment for 2-6 months from the moment of diagnosis, only a few survive the five-year mark," concluded Mikhaleva.