To analyze the epidemiology, clinical characteristics, treatment patterns and outcome in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients.We analyzed clinical, pathological and therapeutic data from 256 consecutive patients, examined at S. Croce Hospital in Cuneo-Piedmont, with a diagnosis of HCC between 30(th) June 2000 and 1(st) July 2010. We analyzed the hospital imaging database and examined all medical records, including the diagnosis code for HCC (155.0 according to the ICD-9M classification system), both for inpatients and outpatients, and discovered 576 relevant clinical records. After the exclusion of reports relating to multiple admissions for the same patient, we identified 282 HCC patients. Moreover, from this HCC series, we excluded 26 patients: 1 patient because of an alternative final diagnosis, 8 patients because of a lack of complete clinical data in the medical record and 17 patients because they were admitted to different health care facilities, leaving 256 HCC patients. To highlight possible changes in HCC patterns over the ten-year period, we split the population into two five-year groups, according to the diagnosis period: 30(th) June 2000-30(th) June 2005 and 1(st) July 2005-1(st) July 2010. Patients underwent a 6-mo follow up.Two hundred and fifty-six HCC patients were included (male/female 182/74; mean age 70 years), 133 in the first period and 123 in the second. Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection was the most common HCC risk factor (54.1

作者：Luigi, Fenoglio；Cristina, Serraino；Elisabetta, Castagna；Adele, Cardellicchio；Fulvio, Pomero；Maurizio, Grosso；Carlo, Senore

来源：World journal of gastroenterology 2013 年 19卷 21期