Hepatocellular carcinoma is one of the most common fatal malignan cies of mankind. Up to a few decades ago it was looked upon as a cancer which aroused mainly academic concern but relatively little clinical interest, because its therapy and prognosis had a most un favorable outlook. Indeed, it was mostly recognized only at autopsy. Recently this pessimism has radically changed and is disappearing to a rapidly accelerating degree. Many of the scientific contributions at this change in outlook are the result of research in the Far East, first, Japan and then gradually extending to its neighbors. The introduction of experimental hepatocarcinogens by Yoshida more than 50 years ago may have been one of the first important steps. Hepatocellular car cinoma shows a characteristic geographical distribution. With the highest incidence in China, Taiwan, Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, followed by southern and eastern Europe, while generally the incidence is rather low in western and northern Europe and North and South America.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is common in the Far East and South Africa, but is rare in the United States and Europe. The vast experience of the East, which has led to marked improvement in the prognosis of patients with HCC, is made available to researchers worldwide in this monograph. The book is based on an enormous amount of data that has been collected and analyzed by the Liver Cancer Study Group of Japan. The data stems from a survey on HCC in Japan since 1965 and contains information from more than 30,000 patients with regard to age distribution, past medical history, diagnostic procedures, frequency of HBV-associated antigens and antibodies, surgical and conservative treatments, gross anatomical and histological features of the tumors, pathology of the noncancerous portions, distant metastasis, and survival rate. This data is a tremendous contribution to our understanding of the epidemiology, pathology, and the latest developments of the molecular biology and clinical problems of primary liver cancer.