Abstract
Background China has the highest liver cancer burden in the world. Prediction and comparison of the future trends of liver cancer in China and some representative areas may guide further control action.
Methods Using data from the Global Burden of Disease Study, we assessed incidence, mortality, and disability-adjusted life-years of liver cancer in Mainland China, with reference to representative East Asia areas (Taiwan China, Japan, and Korea) and Western areas (the United Kingdom and the United States). The burden of liver cancer was evaluated and predicted using NOREPRED model from 1990 to 2044.
Results Overall, the liver cancer incidence (28.1 to 10.6 per 100,000) and mortality (27.5 to 9.7 per 100,000) decreased from 1990 to 2015 in Mainland China, which were consistent with the trends of Eastern Asia areas. However, the disease burden in Mainland China were then plateaued and started to increase during 2015-2044 (10.6 to 14.8 per 100,000 for incidence; 9.7 to 14.02 per 100,000 for mortality), including the hepatitis-related liver cancer incidence (increase from 8.6 to 11.7 per 100,000). While the changing patterns of alcohol- and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH)- related liver cancer incidence were found similar among Mainland China (0.93 to 1.51 per 100,000 for alcohol; 0.5 to 0.73 per 100,000 for NASH) and Western countries in our projection.
Conclusion The liver cancer burden in Mainland China is unexpectedly predicted to increase again after decades of decline. Future efforts must be made to resolve both the remaining hepatitis-related cancer burden and the changing etiologies.
Competing Interest Statement
The authors have declared no competing interest.
Funding Statement
This study was partially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grants 81773555], the funders had no role in the design of the study or the interpretation of the findings.
Author Declarations
I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained.
Yes
The details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below:
The study used (or will use) ONLY openly available human data that were originally located at:the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Study 2019 (http://ghdx.healthdata.org/gbd-results-tool)
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Footnotes
Guarantor of the article: ZF and LZ;
Financial support: This study was partially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grants 81773555], the funders had no role in the design of the study or the interpretation of the findings.
Potential competing interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Data Availability
The datasets generated for this study are available on request to the corresponding author (Davidfuzming{at}whu.edu.cn).