Liver cancer is the fifth most common cancer in the world. People infected with hepatitis B and hepatitis C virus, or those who have damaged their livers with alcohol, are most at risk of liver cancer. Because there is no reliable screening test, cases of liver cancer are often not diagnosed till well advanced, which makes for a high mortality rate. Those at risk are often tested for a protein called alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) but this can give rise to false positives (diagnosing liver cancer in those who do not actually have the disease).

But now Dr Claus Fimmel and his team at Loyola University Medical Center are developing a test for liver cancer based upon a protein called Golgi Protein 73 (GP73). Fimmel discovered GP73 in 1998 and found it is higher among those with liver cancer than it is in healthy people. Levels are not elevated in patients with other diseases, which makes it more specific for liver cancer. More than 1,000 patients at various stages of liver cancer and with non-liver disease have been tested for GP73 in studies around the world. A large study is being done in China, where liver cancer is common because of the large numbers infected with hepatitis B. Meanwhile, diagnostic companies are developing a blood test based upon GP73. This may be helpful to the large numbers in the USA and around the world who are currently infected with hepatitis C and may develop cirrhosis of the liver over the next 20 years. Once cirrhosis of the liver has set in, the risk of liver cancer is high. But if a reliable screening test can catch it early, the prognosis may be more optimistic.

Source:

Loyola University Health System 9^th April 2010