[Liver cancer and life style--drinking habits and smoking habits]

Japan is one of the endemic area of liver cancer in the world with its incidence rate of more than 30 per 100,000 population for males in Osaka. It is well known that Hepatitis B virus is closely related with hepatocellular carcinoma, however, its prevalence is moderately high (2-3%) in Japan. The relationship between drinking and liver cancer is examined by 3 different type of studies. First, more than 13,000 male alcoholics were followed for 9.9 years in average. Their incidence rate of liver cancer was 1.4 times higher than that of general population. Second, the case-control study of liver cancer among HBs antigen positives revealed that drinking habit was related with liver cancer even after adjusted with smoking habits. Lastly hospital based case-control study also showed the positive relationship between drinking habit and liver cancer. The relationship between smoking and liver cancer is still unclear.