The 5th Asia-Pacific Primary Liver Cancer Expert Meeting (APPLE 2014), A Bridge to a Consensus on HCC Management, Taipei, Taiwan, July 11-13, 2014: Abstracts

Liver cancer has posed a huge disease burden on the Korean population. Liver cancer is the 4th most common cancer in Korea after stomach cancer, colon cancer and lung cancer in order. Chronic viral hepatitis B and C are the major causes of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in Korea. Especially, hepatitis B virus infection rate is very high and over 70% of HCC is related to hepatitis B infection. In the pre-vaccination era before 1980s, 6.6∼8.6% of the general Korean population tested positive for HBsAg. To reduce the high disease burden of hepatitis B, the Korean Government implemented public health programs such as universal viral hepatitis B vaccination for neonates in 1995 and vertical transmission prevention program for the neonates from HBsAg positive mothers in 2002. The HBsAg positive rate has been decreasing thanks to the success of those vaccination programs. The HBsAg positive rate in adults aged over 20 years is about 4% and less than 1% in aged less than 20 years in 2012 according to the Korea National Health and Nutrition Survey data. Through vertical transmission prevention program initiated in 2002, hepatitis B immunoglobulin and hepatitis B vaccination were provided to about 170,000 neonates and the success rate of the vertical transmission reached about 97%. Also the cost for the diagnosis and treatment of acute and chronic hepatitis B is covered by the National Health Insurance. Hepatitis C infection rate is less than 1% in individuals aged less than 50 years – 0% in aged 10∼18, 0.1% in aged 19∼29, 0.3% in aged 20∼39, 0.9% in aged 40∼49 – and 1∼2% in aged older than 50 years. The cost for the diagnosis and treatment of chronic hepatitis C is covered by the National Health Insurance like hepatitis B as well. Despite of the successful implementation of the National Immunization Program, the disease burden of viral hepatitis and liver cancer is still high in Korea, various programs to reduce the disease burden should be in place in the future.