[Medicine] Taiwan Offers New Model to Predict Hepatitis C Cancer Risk

[Medicine] Taiwan Offers New Model to Predict Hepatitis C Cancer Risk (Chinese Version)

CNA – Focus Taiwan (2012/02/19) & The China Post (2012/02/20) A Taiwan-led research team has successfully devised a new prediction model to calculate the likelihood of hepatitis C patients developing liver cancer, the team leader Chien-jen CHEN, Vice President of Academia Sinica, said February 19.

The model incorporates indicators such as age, the liver function indexes ALT and AST, hepatitis C virus RNA in serum, cirrhosis and the genotype of the virus, said CHEN at a session of the Conference of the Asian Pacific Association for the Study of the Liver held in Taipei.

CHEN said the serum data was particularly important in predicting the chances of developing liver cancer.

The model, which can predict a result with 80 percent accuracy, assigns a score on 0-25 scale to analyze each case. The higher the score, the higher the risk of getting liver cancer, CHEN said.

CHEN's team also launched a model in 2010 to calculate the chances of the hepatitis B virus developing into liver cancer.

In the future, the prediction models will be available on the Internet and in apps on smartphones to allow individuals to determine their own risk factor, CHEN said.


Further Information:
CNA – Focus Taiwan 2012/02/19
The China Post 2012/02/20