The most common form of liver cancer is on the rise in the United States, and the increase is expected to continue until hepatitis B and C are brought under better control. Liver cancer will strike an estimated 14,500 Americans in 1999, according to the American Cancer Society. Most of them will get hepatocellular carcinoma. The cancer is often caused by chronic hepatitis B and hepatitis C, viral diseases that lead to liver scarring, known as cirrhosis, which in turn can lead to liver cancer. Hepatitis also can cause other changes in liver cells that make them cancerous.
Alcoholism is another leading cause of cirrhosis and liver cancer.
But alcoholism is declining and hepatitis B infections are slowing because of a vaccine and effective treatments. So researchers believe most of the increase in liver cancer is due to hepatitis C, a disease discovered a decade ago. The study was published in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine . Many Americans with hepatitis C got it during the 1960s and '70s from transfusions before the blood supply was cleaned up by 1992. The virus can also be spread between drug users sharing needles, and in rare cases, through sex.