HEPATOCELLULAR CARCINOMA DATABASE
Hepatocellular carcinoma is a cancer malignancy of the liver that is the most common in
the world and is first in the leader board of cancer related deaths. The main risk factors that
lead to this malignancy are excessive alcohol consumption and chronic viral hepatitis.
Suppression of the hepatitis virus can result in the delayed occurrence of malignancy for up to 5
years. Other risk factors are; sex whereby males are more at risk than females at a ratio of 2:1,
metabolic and genetic diseases like hemochromatosis, exposure to aflatoxins and smoking
cigarettes.
Cirrhosis in the liver causes the formation of regenerative nodules which are the result
of increased proliferation of hepatocytes. Detection of these lesions depends on their size, the
smaller lesions are harder to detect and lead to misdiagnosis. The use of AFP which regulates
the proliferation of the adult liver cells as a biomarker together with DCP which is produced by
malignant hepatocytes leads to better sensitivity and specificity in the detection of the disease.
Treatment of the disease is possible only when it is diagnosed early with retained liver function.
A lot of interventions are possible some surgical and others nonsurgical but for the full recovery
a patients will always need a multidisciplinary team that will monitor all developments. In this
project we create a database for the above phenotype to aid in earlier diagnosis.