Clinical features and prognostic factors of cryptogenic hepatocellular carcinoma

The incidence and mortality of liver cancer rank fifth and third among all cancers (1). The common causes of liver cancer include viral hepatitis and alcoholic liver cirrhosis (1,2). The early vaccination of hepatitis B vaccine and the increased safety of blood products have significantly reduced the incidence of viral liver cancer; furthermore, alcoholic liver cirrhosis-associated liver cancer has also been controlled in recent years (3). Unfortunately, the proportions of cryptogenic hepatocellular carcinoma (cHCC), caused by non-viral hepatitis and nonalcoholic cirrhosis and with unknown etiologies, have gradually increased (4). In this article, we retrospectively analyzed the clinical data of 59 cHCC patients who had been managed in the Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery of our hospital from 1999 to 2010, with an attempt to investigate the clinical features and prognostic factors of cHCC