Frequency of HCV infection in renal cell carcinoma patients

Abstract

Chronic infections with hepatitis C virus (HCV) are frequently pronounced in the etiology of malignancies especially in hepatocellular carcinoma. The association between HCV and risk of renal cell carcinoma (RCC) development has been stated recently. The authors retrospectively evaluated hepatitis serology for HCV and HBV in patients who had RCC diagnosis between 2005 and 2010 in six oncology centers. Control group was also included from the three different published studies that hepatitis serology studied in healthy people that has been living in the same geographic regions. Histologically confirmed 903 RCC cases and 5,267 healthy subjects were included the study. Median age at diagnosis of RCC was 58 (range: 26-89). There was no increase in HCV positivity in RCC patients compared to healthy control group (1.7 vs. 1.5%; P = 0.77). Frequency of HBsAg positivity was 4.4 and 4.1% in RCC and control groups, respectively (P = 0.65). There is no increase in frequency of HCV and HBsAg positivity in RCC patients. HCV positivity in RCC patients were not different from the healthy people.

Hepatitis C Virus and Nonliver Solid Cancers: Is There an Association between HCV and Cancers of the Pancreas, Thyroid, Kidney, Oral Cavity, Breast, Lung, and Gastrointestinal Tract?

“…Also, there were too much missing data (66%) in this study which may have contributed to bias to their analyses [22]. Budakoğlu et al did not confirm the anti-HCV antibody-positive status of the subjects with HCV RNA which could have resulted in a bias in their analysis since anti-HCV antibodies can be falsely positive due to old infection or secondary to cross reactivation with other infections [40]. Hofmann et al excluded 623 HCV-infected subjects from the analyses due to incomplete information [42].…”

“…Increased prevalence of anti-HCV was found in patients with RC cases as compared to control group [41]. However, Budakoğlu et al found no significant increase in HCV positivity in RC patients compared to healthy control group [40] (Table 5). …”

Association of hepatitis C infection and risk of kidney cancer: A systematic review and meta‐analysis of observational studies

“…As shown in Table in the Supplement, eleven studies were considered at low risk of bias (NOS score ≥ 7), 18‐21,23,24,27,28,30‐32 the other 5 were deemed to have a high risk of bias (NOS score < 7) 22,25,26,29,33 …”

“…Five of them confirmed KC by pathologic reports and the other 11 by ICD code of diagnostic registries. Thirteen studies considered confounding factors, either through matching patients or adjustment analysis, 2 did not perform relevant analysis, 18,29 and the other 1 had no description on it. 26…”

“…Known risk factors for developing KC mainly include smoking, obesity, hypertension, chronic kidney disease, diabetes and hereditary factors 15,17 . The impact of HCV infection on the risk of KC is however debated, owing to the inconsistent results from epidemiological studies 18‐33 . Given the clinical relevance, but also the controversy of this topic, we conducted a meta‐analysis of all available observational studies to systematically evaluate the association between HCV infection and the risk of developing KC, overcoming the limitations of individual studies.…”