Hepatocellular carcinoma with and without cirrhosis. A comparison in southern African blacks

Hepatocellular carcinoma and cirrhosis frequently coexist. In populations with a low incidence of hepatocellular carcinoma, the tumor often arises as a complication of long-standing symptomatic cirrhosis, which may be micronodular or macronodular and which is usually alcoholic in origin, and cirrhosis per se is the major etiologic association of the tumor. The relation between these two pathologic conditions in populations with a high incidence of hepatocellular carcinoma has not hitherto been analyzed. In this study the association was examined in 463 southern African black men with hepatocellular carcinoma. Cirrhosis, almost always macronodular and rarely showing features of alcholic toxicity, was present in 63.1% of the patients. No differences were found in the age structure, clinical features, hepatic function, serum alpha-fetoprotein concentrations, or hepatitis B virus status between patients with hepatocellular carcinoma with and without cirrhosis. Patients with cirrhosis survived slightly longer, but the difference was not biologically significant. It is concluded that the relation between hepatocellular carcinoma and cirrhosis in southern African blacks differs substantially from that in low incidence regions of the tumor.