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Liver Cancer Screening: A New Tool for Improved Detection
Hepatocellular carcinoma, a type of liver cancer, is the sixth most common cancer worldwide and the third leading cause of cancer-related deaths. Screening efforts for this cancer focus on individuals diagnosed with viral hepatitis or those known to have irreversible liver scarring, or cirrhosis. Due in part to increasing rates of obesity, another major risk factor is emerging, metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD), but factors associated with MASLD are not included in current screening practices.
In response, researchers at Yale have developed and validated a new risk score for hepatocellular carcinoma that considers these factors. Their work, “Risk Score for Hepatocellular Cancer in Adults Without Viral Hepatitis or Cirrhosis” was published on November 6, 2024, in JAMA Network Open.