Relationship between cirrhosis, liver cancer, and hepatic metastases. An autopsy study.

Consecutive autopsies (5241) performed in the Trieste area and consecutive autopsies (6511) performed in the Tokyo-Chiba area were analyzed to study the frequency of liver metastases in cirrhotics. The Italian material included 500 cases and the Japanese material included 529 cases of liver cirrhosis. Both of these groups were matched for sex and age with a control group. The results were similar in both areas and confirmed the widely held but disputed opinion that metastases in cirrhotic liver are rare. These results seem to be clinically important since they agree with the fact that most neoplasms in cirrhotic liver are primary. From a biologic and epidemiologic point of view, these results call for reconsideration of the complex relationship existing between cancer and liver cirrhosis, in relation to major causative factors such as alcohol and hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection.