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(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- A universal hepatitis B vaccination program established 25 years ago in Taiwan is still protecting young adults from liver cancer, new data suggests.
Researchers evaluated a universal hepatitis B vaccination program initiated in 1984 in Taiwan to determine its effectiveness in preventing hepatocellular carcinoma, or cancer of the liver. The goal of the program was to prevent the hepatitis B virus infection, which is a precursor to the development of liver cancer.
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Mei-Hwei Chang, M.D., of the Department of Pediatrics at National Taiwan University Hospital in Taipei, and colleagues collected data from nearly 2,000 patients with malignant liver tumors who ranged in age from 6 to 29 years old at diagnosis. Sixty-four cases of liver cancer were found among people who were vaccinated in almost 38 million, while 444 cancer cases were found among almost 80 million unvaccinated people.
These data suggest that the effectiveness of the universal HBV immunization program to prevent hepatocellular carcinoma has extended beyond childhood and into young adulthood over the past two decades," the study authors write.
According to the study, some cases of liver cancer developed despite the universal vaccination. Researchers determined most of these patients were not given enough doses of the vaccine or were not sufficiently protected when they were born to an infected mother.
SOURCE: Journal of the National Cancer Institute, September 16, 2009
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