Carcinoma hepatocelular é o tipo mais comum de câncer de fígado primário, com uma estimativa de 23.000 novos casos e cerca de 14.000 mortes esperadas em 2012 nos EUA. Hepatocellular carcinoma most commonly occurs in people with liver disease, particularly in people with chronic hepatitis B and C or exposure to toxins such as or . Certain diseases, such as and , markedly increase the risk of developing HCC. and Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is excessive build-up in the with due to causes other than . There are two types; non-alcoholic fatty liver (NAFL) and non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), with the latter also including are also increasingly recognized as risk factors for HCC.
Symptoms often don't appear in the early stages of the cancer. Later, symptoms include weight loss, upper abdominal pain or yellowing of the skin (jaundice). El carcinoma hepatocelular (CHC) o hepatocarcinoma es un cáncer del hígado que constituye el 80-90% de los tumores hepáticos malignos primarios. The vast majority of HCC occurs in and , in countries where hepatitis B infection is endemic and many are infected from birth.
Hepatocellular carcinoma, like any other cancer, develops when alterations and mutations affecting the cellular machinery cause the cell to replicate at a higher rate and/or result in the cell avoiding .
In particular, chronic infections of and/or can aid the development of hepatocellular carcinoma by repeatedly causing the body's own immune system to attack the , some of which are infected by the virus, others merely bystanders. Activated immune-system inflammatory cells release free radicals, such as and , which in turn can cause DNA damage and lead to gene mutations. Reactive oxygen species also cause epigenetic alterations at the sites of DNA repair.
While this constant cycle of damage followed by repair can lead to mistakes during repair, which in turn lead to carcinogenesis, this hypothesis is more applicable, at present, to hepatitis C. Chronic hepatitis C causes HCC through the stage of cirrhosis. In chronic hepatitis B, however, the integration of the viral genome into infected cells can directly induce a noncirrhotic liver to develop HCC. Alternatively, can have a similar effect. The toxin from certain species of fungi is a carcinogen and aids carcinogenesis of hepatocellular cancer by building up in the liver. The combined high prevalence of rates of aflatoxin and hepatitis B in settings such as and has led to relatively high rates.