Conference urges development of comprehensive health management for liver cancer patients

Leading doctors, patient communities and pharmaceutical companies who attended the 17th National Liver Cancer Conference in Shanghai on Saturday called for the creation of comprehensive health management for patients of liver cancer to bolster long-term survival rates.

According to statistics from France-based Global Cancer Observatory, an international cancer research platform, the numbers of new incidence and morbidity cases of liver cancer in China accounted for nearly half of the world's total in 2018.

During the conference, medical experts said that while surgery, targeted therapy and immunotherapy for liver cancer have developed rapidly, the overall long-term survival rate of patients is still unideal.

Roughly 80 percent of liver cancer patients in the country are found to be in the advanced stage of the disease upon their first diagnosis and have lost the chance of a radical surgery. Even with a radical surgery, 60 to 70 percent of them suffer from metastasis and relapse within five years, said Fan Jia, an academician with the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the director of Zhongshan Hospital affiliated with the Fudan University in Shanghai.

Zhongshan Hospital, one of the country's pioneers in the treatment of this disease, has taken the lead in introducing a patient management throughout the entire disease process. It has adopted a multidisciplinary management model to formulate the best individualized diagnosis and treatment plan that help patients alleviate symptoms and prolong survival, Fan said.

Representatives from Roche Pharmaceuticals also said at the conference that the company is planning to establish an integrated one-stop center to further promote standard diagnosis and treatment for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) which combines online and offline resources. According to the plan, HCC patients at all disease stages could have access to disease information and be able to consult with medical experts online.