Performance and Effectiveness of Hepatocellular Carcinoma Screening in Individuals with HBsAg Seropositivity in China: a Multicenter Prospective Study

Overview

Journal Nat Cancer

Specialty Oncology

Date 2023 Sep 4

PMID 37667043

Authors

Hongmei Zeng

Maomao Cao

Changfa Xia

Dongmei Wang

Kun Chen

Zheng Zhu

Ruiying Fu

Shaokai Zhang

Jinyi Zhou

Huadong Wang

Xianyun Qi

Shuguang Dai

Yong Chen

Zhong Sun

Hao Ding

Qingwen Li

Hui Zhao

Xuehong Zhang

Jakub Morze

John S Ji

Feng Sun

Xueqin Yu

Chunfeng Qu

Wanqing Chen

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Current guidelines recommend hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) surveillance for at-risk individuals, including individuals with hepatitis B virus infection. However, the performance and survival benefits of annual screening have not been evaluated through multicenter prospective studies in a Chinese population. Between 2017 and 2021, we included 14,426 participants with hepatitis B surface antigen seropositivity in an annual HCC screening study in China using a multicenter prospective design with ultrasonography and serum alpha-fetoprotein. After four rounds of screening and follow-up, the adjusted hazard ratios of death after correction for lead-time and length-time biases for screen-detected cancers at the prevalent and incident rounds were 0.74 (95% confidence interval = 0.60-0.91) and 0.52 (95% confidence interval = 0.40-0.68), respectively. A meta-analysis demonstrated that HCC screening was associated with improved survival after adjusting for lead-time bias. Our findings highlight the 'real-world' feasibility and effectiveness of annual HCC screening in community settings for the early detection of HCC and to improve survival.

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