What Is Autoimmune Hepatitis & Why Is It So Serious?

Liver Cancer

Liver cancer is one of the complications of autoimmune hepatitis. This is because the disorder causes scarring in the liver, which increases the risk of cancer of the liver. The type of cancer that affects autoimmune hepatitis patients is called hepatocellular carcinoma. This is a primary cancer, which means the malignancy begins in the liver. Sometimes in other cancers, the malignancy will metastasize to the liver and cause a secondary cancer. However, even with autoimmune hepatitis, the incidence of liver cancer is rare.

In some studies of individuals with autoimmune hepatitis, none of the subjects came down with cancer of the liver, even if they had cirrhosis caused by their autoimmune disease. Individuals who were more likely to get hepatocellular carcinoma had hepatitis B or C, liver disease caused by alcoholism, chronic viral hepatitis, or primary biliary cirrhosis. Other patients who developed cancer of the liver had hemochromatosis, a condition where the body stores too much iron.