EvidenceHepatocellular carcinoma

For someone offered the test, these are the numbers that describe what a result means in an NHS population: about 1 in 100 tests came back positive each year, between 46 and 58 in 100 positives were cancer, and a negative result left about 1 in 100 with an undetected cancer within the year. The test found between a quarter and a third of all cancers diagnosed in a screening round, and about half to two thirds of the 12 cancer types it was designed to find. Whether finding them this way reduces late-stage diagnoses is the primary question, and this paper says only that the answer was no; the primary-endpoint paper had not appeared on Europe PMC by 23 September 2026.

There is no safe level of alcohol for cancer risk, and the risk is highest for cancers of the mouth, throat, oesophagus, liver, bowel and breast. Public awareness is low; most people do not know alcohol causes breast cancer. Warning labels and minimum pricing are the policy levers being debated.

Patients with advanced liver cancer and good liver function should be offered atezolizumab plus bevacizumab (or durvalumab plus tremelimumab) rather than sorafenib as first treatment; median survival is now around 19 months and about a quarter of patients respond. Endoscopy to treat varices before starting bevacizumab is essential because of bleeding risk. Patients with poorer liver function (Child-Pugh B) or autoimmune disease or transplants were not studied.

CONCORD is the evidence base for national cancer plans and for the statement that where you live changes your chance of surviving cancer. Its country tables are the benchmark health systems use to judge early diagnosis and treatment access.

China accounts for roughly a quarter of the world's cancer cases, and this paper is the reference that made its burden legible internationally. It explains why Chinese trial programmes and drug pipelines concentrate on lung, stomach, oesophageal and liver cancers.

Maintaining a healthy weight is now established cancer prevention for over a dozen cancer types. For clinicians and policymakers, obesity belongs alongside tobacco and alcohol in prevention strategy. Whether intentional weight loss in adulthood reverses risk is still being studied, including in trials of GLP-1 drugs.

This paper reframed pancreatic and liver cancer as the coming burden and is cited in most arguments for investing in them. Its pancreatic cancer projection has been tracking close to reality in the years since.

This is the study most often cited for the size of the obesity and cancer link, and it broadened the list of weight-related cancers well beyond the few known before. It underlies weight management advice in cancer prevention guidance and the current interest in whether GLP-1 drugs change cancer risk.

This paper is why the tumour microenvironment is studied as intensely as the cancer cell itself. It underpins vaccination against HPV and hepatitis B as cancer prevention, aspirin and anti-inflammatory trials in bowel cancer, and the current work on macrophages and myeloid cells as immunotherapy targets.

This paper is why TP53 status is reported in almost every tumour genome and why mutational signatures can point to causes. Its idea that mutation patterns record exposures grew into the mutational signature field, and TP53 mutation remains a marker of poor prognosis and a drug target still being pursued.