Increased Prevalence of HTLV‐I Infection in Patients with Hepatocellular Carcinoma Associated with Hepatitis C Virus

The progression from chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection to hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) has been reported. We evaluated whether co‐infection with the human T‐lymphotropic virus type I (HTLV‐I) might be associated with this transition in a cross‐sectional analysis of 127 patients with HCV‐chronic hepatitis (mean age=51.7) and 43 patients with HCV‐associated HCC (mean age=62.4); the seroprevalence of anti‐HTLV‐I was 9.5% and 30.2%, respectively. For subjects 50 years or older, the seroprevalence of anti‐HTLV‐I in HCC patients was 13/41 (31.7%) which was significantly higher than that in chronic hepatitis patients (6/82, 7.3%) (P=0.001). The relative risk (RR) of association was 12.8 (P=0.0004) among the males, however, no association was evident among the females, RR=1.3 (P=0.80). The increased prevalence of HTLV‐I positivity among the HCC cases could not be attributed to a higher rate of prior transfusion. These data suggest that co‐infection with HTLV‐I may contribute to the development of HCC among patients with HCV‐induced chronic liver diseases in a highly HTLV‐I‐endemic area.