High body mass index and the risk of hepatocellular carcinoma

We read with great interest the recent article by Hagström et al,1 in which they used register data from more than 1.2 million Swedish men enlisted for conscription between 1969 and 1996 in order to investigate the relationship between body mass index (BMI) in late adolescence and future liver diseases. During a follow-up of more than 34 million person-years, 251 cases of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) were identified from the Swedish Cancer Register (SCR). In this study, the authors used a sample survey from the year 19982 for reference to indicate the high register completeness from the SCR, which has captured around 96% of all diagnosed tumours. However, another study, also from Sweden, which was just recently published on Hepatology, indicates that up to 37%–45% of HCCs in Sweden were never reported to the SCR, and this percentage has increased slightly over time.3 If calculated according to this...

http://ift.tt/2r2pJ1f