Study links high serum enzyme to liver cancer:
This article was originally published in Clinica
Executive Summary
Measuring the level of an enzyme in serum could help doctors identify which patients with hepatitis C virus-associated cirrhosis are at risk of rapidly developing liver cancer, according to a Japanese team. A seven-year follow-up study, published in Cancer (August 15), showed that the five-year incidence rate of hepatocellular carcinoma was 53.6% in patients with persistently high levels of the enzyme alanine aminotransferase (ALT) compared with 7.1% in those with persistently low levels of the enzyme. The team suggested that patients with high serum ALT levels may benefit from intensive surveillance using medical imaging.