Parity and hepatocellular carcinoma. A population-based study in Sweden

The association between parity and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) was studied using a data-base generated by linking 2 Swedish nation-wide registries; the Cancer Registry and the Fertility Registry. Among women born between 1925 and 1960, 133 patients with HCC recorded in the Cancer Registry between 1958 and 1984 were compared with 665 age-matched controls. In this nested case-control study there was no positive association between parity, age at first birth or frequency of twinning on the one hand, and risk of HCC on the other. It appears that the positive association between parity and HCC previously reported is limited to cases of HCC caused by chronic infection with hepatitis B virus; these cases represent only a small fraction of HCC cases in Sweden.