# Forecasted impacts of a sofosbuvir-based national hepatitis C treatment programme on Egypt's hepatocellular cancer epidemic: simulation of alternatives

Source: https://onco.cc/key-papers/paper-egypt-hcv-hcc-forecast-2018/  
OnCo record `paper-egypt-hcv-hcc-forecast-2018` (Key paper). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

A model of Egypt's hepatitis C treatment programme estimated that curing the infection with sofosbuvir-based tablets would prevent about 956,000 liver cancers between 2015 and 2050.

## Summary

A Markov model of hepatitis C infection and treatment simulated the hepatitis C-related liver cancer epidemic in Egypt from 2009 to 2050, comparing the older treatment programme with the sofosbuvir-based programme introduced in 2015, using parameters from peer-reviewed studies and expert opinion. It modelled people with hepatitis C aged 15 to 59 in 2008, healthy people aged 5 to 59 in 2008, and cohorts of five-year-olds entering the population each year from 2009.

## Fields

- Kind: Key paper
- Last checked: 2026-11-04
- Journal: BMJ Global Health
- Year: 2018
- DOI: 10.1136/bmjgh-2017-000572
- Authors: Ma W, Soliman AS, Anwar WA, et al.
- Findings: Under the new programme, the number of liver cancer cases was projected to peak earlier and lower, at about 29,000 in 2025, with prevalence peaking at about 28 per 100,000 in 2023 and incidence at about 14 per 100,000 in 2022.; The new programme was estimated to avert about 956,000 liver cancer cases between 2015 and 2050.
- What it means: Curing hepatitis C at national scale is expected to reduce liver cancer in Egypt, but in this model the effect builds over decades, with the number of cases still near its peak in the mid-2020s.
- Caveats: A simulation, not an observed count; its inputs include expert opinion.; Written before the 2018 to 2019 national screening campaign, whose reach WHO later reported.

## Sources

- BMJ Glob Health 2018: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2017-000572
- PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29707244/

## Connected records

- cancers: [Hepatocellular carcinoma](https://onco.cc/cancers/hcc/)
- terms: [Hepatitis B and C as cancer causes](https://onco.cc/terms/hbv-hcv/)
- institutions: [National Population-Based Cancer Registry Program of Egypt](https://onco.cc/institutions/egypt-national-cancer-registry-program/)

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