A Taiwanese medical research team said that it has developed an index of five critical-risk factors used to predict the risk of developing liver cancer from hepatitis C in a five-to-5 year period.
Advancing Clinical Treatment of Liver Disease director and National Taiwan University Hospital Medical Department physician Kao Jia-horng (高嘉宏) said the prevalence of hepatitis C is about 4 percent in Taiwan — higher than in China, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand and Australia — with about 400,000 to 600,000 cases nationwide.
Hepatitis C is transmitted primarily by blood-to-blood contact, such as through unprotected sexual intercourse, tattoos, needle sharing, surgery, blood transfusion and acupuncture; and about 50 percent of patients with acute hepatitis C develop a chronic infection, he said.
If hepatitis C patients develop cirrhosis of the liver, about 30 percent are likely to suffer from hepatic failure within 10 years, and about 1 to 4 percent develop liver cancer every year, Kao said.
There is no vaccine for hepatitis C, Kao added.
The research team conducted a follow-up study on 1,095 hepatitis C patients over 15 years and identified five factors that contribute a patients’ risk of developing liver cancer — age, liver function index (alanine aminotransferase, ALT), virus genotype, viral load and the degree of liver fibrosis.
Team member and assistant professor at National Yang Ming University Institute of Clinical Medicine Lee Mei-hsuan (李美璇) said patients above 40 years of age, with higher ALT and hepatitis C viral load, more severe liver fibrosis and genotype 1 face greater risk of developing liver cancer and that the index model has a precision of about 70 percent.
The degree of liver fibrosis has the highest association with the risks of developing liver cancer, she said, adding that hepatitis C can be treated and cured, especially with new oral medicines developed to reduce viral load and slow the development of liver fibrosis, but patients are advised to make follow-up visits to doctors regularly.
‘LONE WOLF’: The suspect was difficult to locate, as he did not use a cellphone, did not contact family and often lived in abandoned sites or parks, police said Taipei police on Thursday morning arrested a man accused of numerous burglaries and at least 14 incidents of sexual assault spanning more than 20 years, in what might be the nation’s most notorious crime spree in recent years. Sixty-year-old Tu Ming-lang (涂明朗) — who was yesterday placed in judicial detention, after a judge determined he was a flight risk without a fixed address — faces multiple charges of sexual assault and burglary, police said. A task force comprised of various law enforcement agencies arrested Tu as part of an investigation into an April 28 burglary in Daan District (大安), in which a
ONLINE REPORT: Confirmed cases filling out the online contact tracing report can check a box to indicate that a close contact had received a booster dose, an official said The guidelines for diagnosing COVID-19 have been revised to include people aged 65 or older who test positive with a rapid test that is confirmed by a healthcare worker, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday, as it reported 65,794 new local infections. The CECC had first announced the change on Monday, before publishing the new guidelines. Starting today, people aged 65 or older, regardless of whether they are undergoing home quarantine, home isolation or self-disease prevention, can be classified as a confirmed COVID-19 case by a healthcare professional, based on a positive result from an antigen rapid test, said
Taiwan is on alert for monkeypox, a rare viral disease that has caused 87 infections in 11 countries over the past three weeks, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Saturday. The WHO on Friday convened an emergency session to discuss a sudden outbreak of monkeypox in North America and Europe. Since the beginning of this month, 87 confirmed cases and 28 possible cases have been identified in 11 countries. The countries with the highest case counts are England with 29 cases, and Portugal and Spain with 23 each. Monkeypox is a viral zoonotic disease occurring primarily in the tropical rainforest areas
Three human skeletons and artifacts believed to be about 400 years old were unearthed by construction workers at National Ilan University in Yilan County, the university said yesterday. The discoveries were made on May 10 as workers were digging to expand the College of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science’s facilities, the university said in a statement. The skeletons were found at three sites, along with glass beads, copper bells and rings, discs and a fish-shaped metal knot, it said. The find is likely connected to the “Old Baili Village” (擺厘舊社, Bai Li Jiu She), an as-yet-undiscovered Kavalan settlement that has been mentioned in
RSS