Patients with hepatocellular carcinoma: Your address matters

In their study, Goutte and colleagues analyzed a total of 31,927 patients diagnosed with HCC who had been included in a nationwide French database during 4 years (between 2009 and 2012). They found significant differences in HCC incidence rates between the 95 French inland departments (one of the administrative divisions of France), ranging from 9.1 to 26.1/100.000 population. The proportion of patients receiving a curative therapy (defined as transplantation, resection, and radiofrequency ablation) varied up to 4-fold among departments.