Racial disparities in treatment and survival of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma in the United States

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) constitutes 4.6% of all new cancer cases and represents the fifth leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide (1-3). Although HCC is less common in the United States (US) compared with Africa and Eastern Asia, the incidence and mortality associated with HCC have been steadily increasing in the US over the past two decades (4-7). Furthermore, HCC is of interest in that it disproportionally affects all US racial/ethnic minority populations (8-10). In particular, the incidence of HCC is over two fold higher among Asian- and African-Americans compared with Caucasian patients in the US (8-10). Of note, recent studies have reported HCC-related mortality to have increased by 2.1%, 2.4% and 1.3% per year among white, black and Hispanic patients, respectively, between 2000 and 2010, but decreased by 1.6% per year among Asian patients (5)