Higher Titer Hepatitis B Core Antibody Predicts a Higher Risk of Liver Metastasis and Worse Survival in Patients With Colorectal Cancer 

Abstract Purpose: This study aims to the find the association between HBV infection and postoperative survival and the risk of liver metastasis in colorectal cancer patients.Methods: Patients who underwent curative surgical resection for colorectal cancer (CRC) between January 2011 and December 2012 were included. Patients were grouped according to anti-HBc. Differences in overall survival (OS), time to progress (TTP) and hepatic metastasis-free survival (HMFS) between groups and significant predictors were analyzed.Results: 327 colorectal cancer patients are comprised of 202 anti-HBc negative cases and 125 anti-HBc positive cases, and anti-HBc positive cases are further divided into high-titer anti-HBc group (39) and low-titer anti-HBc group (86). High-titer anti-HBc group had significantly worse overall survival (5-Yr, 65.45% vs. 80.06%; P < .001), time to progress (5-Yr, 44.26% vs. 84.73%; P < .001) and hepatic metastasis-free survival (5-Yr, 82.44% vs. 94.58%; P = .029) than low-titer group. Multivariate model showed anti-HBc ≥ 8.8 S/CO was correlated with poor overall survival (HR, 3.510; 95% CI, 1.718-7.17; P < .001), time to progress (HR, 5.747; 95% CI, 2.789-11.842; P < .001) and hepatic metastasis-free survival (HR, 3.754; 95% CI, 1.054-13.369; P = .041) in the anti-HBc positive cases.Conclusion: Higher titer anti-HBc predicts a higher risk of liver metastasis and a worse survival in anti-HBc positive colorectal cancer patients.