screening for hepatocellular carcinoma筛查肝癌.pdf

SAGE-Hindawi Access to Research International Journal of Hepatology Volume 2011, Article ID 363151, 4 pages doi:10.4061/2011/363151 Review Article Screening for Hepatocellular Carcinoma Hock-Foong Lui1, 2 1 Gleneagles Hospital, 6A Napier Road, Singapore 258500 2 Singapore General Hospital, Outram Road, Singapore 169608 Correspondence should be addressed to Hock-Foong Lui, drluiclinic@ Received 16 March 2011; Accepted 19 July 2011 Academic Editor: Deepak Amarapurkar Copyright © 2011 Hock-Foong Lui. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Hepatocellular carcinoma is one of the most serious complications of chronic liver disease and is the third most lethal cancer worldwide. Symptoms emerge very late in the course of its natural history with an attendant poor outcome. Screening is of paramount importance in a successful strategy to treat hepatocellular carcinoma. A successful screening program rests the availability of an at-risk population, reliable diagnostics tests that are able to diagnose a condition at a stage where effective, and relatively simple and acceptable treatments are available. In hepatocellular carcinoma, all patients with liver cirrhosis or chronic hepatitis B virus infection are at risk. Six monthly ultrasound and alpha-foetoprotein determination form the backbone of the screening program. Newer modalities and tests show promise but have not supplanted the standard tests. 1. Introduction that effective therapy can be offered. In this regard, screening