Hepatitis B Vaccination Reduces Liver Cancer in Children and Teenagers telusuri

Implementation of vaccination program of hepatitis B virus (HBV) is universal in infants in the mid-1980s has resulted in a significant decline in the incidence hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) among children and adolescents in Taiwan. That's according to a report published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute online edition of 16 September 2009.

Hepatitis B is a major cause of hepatocellular carcinoma - a type of primary liver cancer - especially in endemic areas of chronic HBV infection, as occurred in many parts of Asia.

Mei-Hwei Chang and colleagues from Taiwan hepatomas Study Group to investigate whether prevention of HCC after the launch of the program is a universal HBV vaccine to newborns in Taiwan in July 1984 has passed through childhood, and to determine predictors of HCC in the cohort of vaccinated infants when the new born.

The researchers used two national HCC list to collect data from 1958 patients aged six to 29 years old when they were diagnosed with liver cancer between 1983 and 2004. Researchers analyzed HCC incidence according to age and gender of the newborn cohort of vaccinated and unvaccinated using Poisson regression models.

In addition, medical records of 64 patients who developed HCC while 5,524,435 had been vaccinated and those without HCC who were born after the universal program began, compared to the characteristics of hepatitis B immunization in infants and status of hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) and hepatitis B antigen "e" (HBeAg) in the mother before birth.