WEDNESDAY, March 28, 2018 (HealthDay News) -- Reduced overall survival (OS) is seen for patients with alcohol-related hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), according to a study published online March 28 in Cancer.
Charlotte E. Costentin, M.D., from the Public Hospital System of Paris, and colleagues compared HCC characteristics and outcomes among an alcohol-related group (group A; 582 patients) and a nonalcohol-related group (group NA; 312 patients).
The researchers found that HCC that was alcohol-related was more likely to be diffuse and detected in patients with a worse performance status and worse liver function. The median OS was 9.7 and 5.7 months in groups NA and A, respectively (P = 0.0002), after adjustments for a lead-time bias; in alcohol-abstinent and alcohol-non-abstinent groups, median OS was 5.8 and 5.0 months, respectively (P = 0.09). When survival was assessed at each Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer (BCLC) stage, the prognostic role of alcohol disappeared. Increased lead time-adjusted median OS was seen for patients with HCC detected during a cirrhosis follow-up program (199 patients) compared to those with HCC diagnosed incidentally (11.7 versus 5.4 months; P < 0.0001).
"In comparison with patients with non-alcohol-related HCC, patients with alcohol-related HCC have reduced OS, mainly because of worse liver function and tumor characteristics at diagnosis, as attested by similar survival within each BCLC stage," the authors write.
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