Hormone replacement therapy is associated with reduced hepatocellular carcinoma risk and improved survival in postmenopausal women with hepatitis B: A nationwide long-term population-based cohort study

PLoS One. 2022 Jul 21;17(7):e0271790. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0271790. eCollection 2022.

Abstract

Postmenopausal women with hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection are more likely to have accelerated liver fibrosis, eventually advancing to liver cirrhosis or hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The association between sex hormones and HBV-related HCC risk is unclear. We investigated whether hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is beneficial to postmenopausal women with HBV infection. This retrospective study selected the data of 44,465patients with HBV infection between January 2000 and December 2018 from Taiwan's National Health Insurance Research Database. After excluding patients with preexisting liver diseases, liver cirrhosis, or liver malignancies, we grouped the remaining 10,474 patients by whether they had undergone HRT for at least 3 months (n = 5,638) and whether they had not received HRT (n = 4,836). After propensity score matching, we assigned 3080 patients to an HRT cohort and matched them (1:1) with those in a non-HRT cohort. The incidence of HCC (P < 0.022) and all-cause mortality rate (P < 0.001) were lower in the HRT cohort than in the non-HRT cohort. The liver cirrhosis risk was not significantly higher in the HRT cohort (P = 0.355). HRT is associated with reduced HCC risk and improved survival outcomes but is unrelated to liver cirrhosis development in postmenopausal women.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Carcinoma, Hepatocellular* / pathology
  • Cohort Studies
  • Female
  • Hepatitis B virus
  • Hepatitis B* / complications
  • Hepatitis B* / drug therapy
  • Hepatitis B, Chronic* / drug therapy
  • Hormone Replacement Therapy
  • Humans
  • Liver Cirrhosis / complications
  • Liver Cirrhosis / drug therapy
  • Liver Cirrhosis / epidemiology
  • Liver Neoplasms*
  • Postmenopause
  • Retrospective Studies

Grants and funding

This study is supported in part by the Tainan Municipal Hospital (RD-10816); The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. No additional external funding received for this study.