Epidemiology and Survival of Hepatocellular Carcinoma in Turkey: Outcome of Multicenter Study

Objective: Hepatocellular cancer (HCC) is one of the important health problems in Turkey. We aimed to determine the clinical and demographic features of HCC in the Turkish popu-lation and to evaluate the prognostic and survival features. Method: Two hundred and twenty-one patients with HCC from five hospitals in Turkey are included in this study. Results: In 44.4 % of the 221 patients with hepatitis B virus and in 21.3 % of the 221 patients with hepatitis C virus were found to be responsible for HCC etiology. It has been shown that HCC developed on cirrhosis basis in 74.2 % of the patients. HCC was presented with single solitary nodule in 69.2 % of the patients. Non-liver metastasis was present in 12.5 % of the patients. In 21.7 % of the patients, a-fetoprotein (AFP) levels were above the diagnostics level of 400 ng/ml. The median overall survival (OS) of 221 patients was 14 months. The median OS of the patients with Child-Pugh A class was significantly longer than that with Child-Pugh B and C classes. The OS of the individuals with normal AFP levels was also longer than that with high AFP levels. The OS of the patients with Stage I HCC according to tumor node metastasis (TNM) classification, the female patients and the treated patients group was foun