Statistics of Liver Cancer

General Liver Cancer Statistics

Primary cancers of the liver or hepatocellular cancers have historically been quite uncommon in the United States, in contrast to the Far East where it is the most common cancer. However, the incidence per hundred thousand lives in the USA has essentially doubled in the last decade alone from 1.4 to 2.5. This rate is climbing because of the rapid increase in the number of people in the population with HCV (Hepatitis C Virus). The actual increase in numbers of people with new onset HCV is only now about 25,000 per year, according to the CDC, but, in the fifteen or so years preceding the discovery of the HCV in 1989, this annual incidence of new cases reached 200,000 per year. Therefore, we now have a population of perhaps more than 2.9 million people in the USA who have had HCV for long enough to suffer the longterm sequelae of hepatic injury including cirrhosis, liver failure requiring liver transplantation, and HCC’s. HCV has passed HBV as the most important cause of HCC in the USA.

Who is Affected by Liver Cancer?

The largest group of patients in whom aggressive local therapies can really help many patients and cure some is the group with colorectal cancer. Each year in the United States about 150, 000 patients develop cancer of the colon or rectum. Around fifty percent of these patients will either have a cancer that has already spread to the liver or they will come back in future years with metastatic cancer to the liver. When the cancer spreads only to the liver, as is the case in about half of these patients, there are a number of treatment options. Resection of the cancer in the liver is the best choice in many patients. Ablation with cold or heat helps many more. Other modalities that are used in these patients include the hepatic artery infusion pump, portal vein embolization, internal radiation with yttrium spheres, external beam radiation, and systemic chemotherapy.

Learn more about the different liver cancer types.

Contact my office today if you have questions about liver cancer statistics.