Hepatocellular carcinoma arising from autoimmune hepatitis: Report of a case

We describe an operative case of a 64-year-old woman with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) associated with autoimmune hepatitis (AIH) during a 4.8-year follow-up. Sixty-seven cases of HCC with AIH have been previously reported as a sporadic complication of AIH. The survival rate after diagnosis with HCC showed the 5-year survival rate to be 10.4%, thus indicating the majority of patients to have either extensive HCC or severe liver dysfunction. Immunosuppressant therapy helped to postpone the hepatocarcinogenesis but it did not improve the prognosis of the patients demonstrating HCC with AIH. A univariate analysis of factors associated with prognosis disclosed that the histology of nontumorous lesion at diagnosis with HCC, tumor size, tumor number, and treatment for HCC were independent prognostic predictors. Patients with AIH were not recognized to be a high-risk group for developing HCC because HCC occasionally occurred even in patients with long-standing cirrhosis in the absence of hepatitis B virus and hepatitis C virus infection.