Liver cancer incidence has more than tripled since 1980. It is the fifth most commonly occurring cancer in men and the ninth in women. There were over 840,000 new cases in 2018, with a constant increase of almost a 3% per year since 2000.
In the EU27 in 2018, there were 66,869 new liver cancer cases diagnosed. According to the World Health Organisation, over 47,000 Europeans die of liver cancer each year. It is one of the fastest rising of all types of cancers in Canada, having still a higher incidence in the US with 70,000 cases diagnosed with primary liver cancer adults in 2018. In Central and South America the incidence of liver cancer has experienced a huge growth, with an average of 69,048 new HCC patients every year and 28,341 deaths annually. Incidence is substantially higher in Africa and Asia, in some cases being the most frequent form of cancer.
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the primary liver malignancy (3 of 4 total liver cancers are HCC). It is typically diagnosed late in its course, with a 5-year survival rate of only 10%. Despite advances in prevention techniques, screening, and new technologies in both diagnosis and treatment, HCC is one of the fastest growing causes of death among all cancers and the second cause of death by cancer worldwide. In addition to the loss of lives and life quality, it poses a major economic burden on healthcare.
At Ophiomics we are tackling the problems of detecting, selecting the right patient for the right treatment and following up patients during treatment to insure that liver cancer ceases to be one of the major global causes of cancer death in the world.
