Clinical characteristics, treatment, and prognosis of non-B, non-C hepatocellular carcinoma: a large retrospective multicenter cohort study

BACKGROUND: The number of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients with non-viral etiologies is increasing in Japan. We conducted a nation-wide survey to examine the characteristics of those patients. METHODS: After we assessed the trend of patients who were first diagnosed with HCC at 53 tertiary care centers in Japan from 1991 to 2010, we collected detailed data of 5326 patients with non-viral etiology. The etiologies were categorized as autoimmune hepatitis, primary biliary cirrhosis, alcoholic liver disease (ALD), non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), unclassified, and other. Baseline characteristics at initial diagnosis, the modality of the initial treatment, and survival status were collected via a website. Survival of the patients was assessed by the Kaplan–Meier method and Cox proportional hazard regression. RESULTS: The proportion of patients with non-viral etiologies increased from 10.0 % in 1991 to 24.1 % in 2010. Of the patients, 92 % were categorized as ALD, NAFLD, or unclassified. Body mass index (BMI) was ≥ 25 kg/m(2) in 39 %. Diabetes was most prevalent in NAFLD (63 %), followed by unclassified etiology (46 %) and ALD (45 %). Approximately 80 % of patients underwent radical therapy, including resection, ablation, or transarterial chemoembolization. Survival rates at 3, 5, 10, 15, and 20 years were 58.2, 42.6, 21.5, 15.2, and 15.2 %, respectively. Multivariate analysis revealed that patients with BMI > 22 and ≤ 25 kg/m(2) showed the best prognosis versus other BMI categories, after adjusting by age, gender, tumor-related factors, and Child-Pugh score. CONCLUSIONS: Most cases of non-B, non-C HCC are related to lifestyle factors, including obesity and diabetes. Slightly overweight patients showed the best prognosis. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00535-014-0973-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.