Around 850,000 cases of people with liver cancer are diagnosed around the world every year, and by 2025 that number is expected to rise to one million.
Josep Llovet, director of the Liver Cancer Program at the University of New York and specialist at the Barcelona Hospital in Spain, mentioned that the development of the disease is related to conditions such as chronic infection by hepatitis B and C virus, as well as patients with chronic liver disease related to alcohol consumption, overweight or diabetes.
Dr. Llovet – who visits the country to provide training to Costa Rican doctors – said that in Costa Rica the incidence is low, but in recent years it has been increasing.
The ideal case for this disease is to identify the risk before the symptoms show up (abdominal pain, fatigue or weight loss).
It is a very widespread disease… In Costa Rica the risk factors are somewhat different, in principle the most important are alcohol cirrhosis and cirrhosis due to overweight and diabetes,”
said Llovet.
He added that it is important to perform follow-up examinations in patients with cirrhosis, in order to prevent them from developing the cancer.
According to the doctor, tumors are more common in men than in women, with a ratio of three to one, but in Costa Rica the ratio is two to one. The age at which it occurs most frequently is 65 years old.
Mortality due to malignant tumors in the liver and intrahepatic biliary tract is fifth in men and women, according to the latest mortality register for malignant tumors published by the Costa Rican Social Security Fund (CCSS).