Epidemiological Profile of Patients with Hepatocellular Carcinoma |Biomedgrid

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the sixth most common cause of cancer in the world, with more than 740,000 cases/year. Hepatocellular carcinoma is related to chronic liver diseases (hepatitis B, C, cirrhosis). Treatment of HCC is variable and may or may not be successful. After treatment, the patient is followed up to prevent and diagnose recurrences. This observational, retrospective and cross-sectional study was carried out at Hospital Universitário Onofre Lopes-HUOL, State of Rio Grande do Norte/Brazil. The epidemiological profile of HCC patients followed up at the Liver Study Center (LSC)-Reference Center in Hepatology was analyzed. Data were obtained from the analysis of medical records from 1995 to 2018, after approval by the Institutional Research Ethics Committee of the 79 patients with confirmed HCC, a male prevalence of 68% was observed; 56% of cases affected patients over 60 years of age, and in 49% of patients, HCC was diagnosed exclusively by imaging method. Concomitant cirrhosis was observed in 63% of the cases studied. During the 13 years analyzed, the loss of follow-up was 64%, which impacted the quality of care provided to patients at the service. Only 13% of patients had access to surgical treatment for HCC, and 53% of cases had less than one year of evolution. The creation of a specialized HCC service would reduce the rates of late diagnosis, loss of follow-up, waiting time for treatment with a positive impact on the prognosis, and increase in survival rates.