Risk of hepatocellular carcinoma in Danish outpatients with alcohol-related cirrhosis

Accurate estimates of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) risk in patients with cirrhosis are important to guide surveillance strategies. We described HCC risk among outpatients with alcohol-related cirrhosis and contrasted the risk of death from HCC with the risk of death from variceal bleeding or trauma.

This was a nationwide, registry-based historical cohort study between 2006 and 2018. We included all Danish outpatients with a hospital diagnosis of alcohol-related cirrhosis, except those with cancer, those with chronic viral hepatitis or autoimmune liver disease, and those older than 80 years. We followed them through 2018 and described the cumulative risk of HCC and the cumulative risk of death from HCC, variceal bleeding, or trauma.

Of the 4,553 patients included, 181 developed HCC and 2,274 died. The cumulative risk of HCC was 0.9% (95% CI 0.7-1.3) after 1 year, 3.6% (95% CI 3.0-4.2) after 5 years, and 6.0% (95% CI 5.1-7.0) after 10 years, or approximately 0.7% per year. Male sex, older age, and decompensated cirrhosis predicted a higher HCC risk. After 10 years, 6.9% of deaths in the cohort could be attributed to HCC, whereas 6.5% could be attributed to variceal bleeding, and 5.0% to trauma.

In 2006-2018, Danish outpatients with alcohol-related cirrhosis had an HCC risk of 0.7% per year, and they were nearly as likely to die from variceal bleeding or from trauma as from HCC. The implications are that many potentially harmful examinations are required for every HCC found through surveillance, so interventions targeting the prevention of other causes of death might be more cost-effective.

We described the risk of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC, the most common form of liver cancer originating in the liver) in Danish outpatients with cirrhosis due to harmful alcohol consumption. Accurate data on that risk are important for patient counselling and decisions about screening for HCC. The risk was about 0.7% per year, which is lower than might be expected and suggests that many potentially harmful screening examinations are required for every HCC found through surveillance.