Chronic HCV Increases Risk for Renal Cancer

An enzyme-linked immunoassay (ELISA) and a molecular assay for ribonucleic acid (RNA) were used to test a large cohort for a specific viral infection.

The cohort was tested for the presence of antibodies to Hepatitis C virus (HCV) and their infectivity by the molecular test to establish their risk for renal cell carcinoma (RCC).

The 67,063 participants were tested for HCV between 1997 and 2006, and followed to monitor development of RCC until April 2008 and about 5% were positive for the virus. RCC developed in 17 of the 3,057 (0.6%) who were HCV positive and in only 0.3% of 64,006 HCV negative participants. Among the HCV-positive RCC patients, the HCV RNA viral levels and genotypes, and liver histology were recorded.

The RCC cases in HCV positive patients included eight clear cell cancers, six papillary cancers, two mixed clear cell/papillary, and one undifferentiated neoplasm.

Among participants diagnosed with RCC, HCV positive patients were of a significantly younger average age than HCV negative patients were. Men were 2.4 times more likely to develop the malignancy than women were, and Afro-Americans had about a 40% higher risk than any other racial or ethnic group.

Chronic hepatitis C is primarily a disease of the liver, but it can also contribute to problems elsewhere in the body. Stuart C. Gordon, M.D., from Henry Ford Hospital, (Detroit, MI, USA) said, "These results add to growing literature that shows that the hepatitis C virus causes disease that extends beyond the liver, and in fact most of our HCV-infected kidney cancer patients had only minimal liver damage". The results were published in the April 2010 issue of Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers and Prevention.

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