While it's already known that hepatitis C can lead to liver cancer especially if it's left untreated, a new study suggests you can develop more than that.
In a comprehensive cohort study conducted by Southern California's Kaiser Permanente, those who have hepatitis C are also at risk of prostate and renal cancers, as well as non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, aside from liver cancer. Their risks are also higher than the general population or those who didn't have the disease.
For the study, the authors looked into the medical records of cancer diagnosis for patients above 18 years old between the years of 2008 to 2012. Whether they were already afflicted of hepatitis C or not wasn't considered initially.
Within the same period, at least 145,000 men and women had hepatitis C while more than 13 million didn't. Of those with hepatitis C, more than 2,000 cancer cases had been reported within 5 years, equivalent to more than 1,500 per 100,000 people. It went down to 1,139 per 100,000 or around 1,600 people if liver cancer diagnoses were excluded.
However, these numbers are still high when compared to non-hepatitis C population. The incidence of cancer was only 605 per 100,000 within 5 years and about 601 per 100,000 when liver cancer was not included.
Overall the risk of developing cancer for those with the virus are at least 2.5 times higher than the general population if liver cancer is included and at least 2 times when such specific cancer is not.
The researchers, nevertheless, would like to point out that the risk seemed to increase when other factors such as smoking and alcohol abuse are included.
Hepatitis C, also known as HCV, is one of the types of hepatitis. This one is caused by a virus that leads to chronic inflammation of the liver. It is spread by infected blood. There's no known cure for it, but certain drugs can delay the progression.