Analysis of primary care electronic health record data of people living with hepatitis B virus: infection and hepatocellular carcinoma risk associated with socio-economic deprivation

Objectives: We set out to characterise chronic hepatitis B (CHB) in the primary care population in En-gland and investigate risk factors for progression to hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Study design: Retrospective cohort study.Methods: We identified 8039 individuals with CHB in individuals aged >= 18 years between 1999 and 2019 in the English primary care database QResearch. HCC risk factors were investigated using Cox propor-tional hazards modelling.Results: Most of those with a record of CHB were males (60%) of non-White ethnicity (>70%), and a high proportion were in the most deprived Townsend deprivation quintile (4 4%). Among 7029 individuals with longitudinal data, 161 HCC cases occurred. Increased HCC hazards were significantly associated with male sex (adjusted hazards ratio [aHR] 3.17, 95% confidence interval [95% CI] 1.92-5.23), in the fifth deprivation quintile as compared to the third quintile (aHR 1.69, 95% CI 1.01-2.84), with older age (for age groups 56-65 and >= 66 years, compared to 26-35 years, aHRs 2.82 [95% CI 1.45-5.46] and 3.76 [95% CI 1.79-7.9], respectively), Caribbean ethnicity (aHR 3.32, 95% CI 1.43-7.71, compared to White ethnicity), ascites (aHR 3.15, 95% CI 1.30-7.67), cirrhosis (aHR 6.55, 95% CI 4.57-9.38) and peptic ulcer disease (aHR 2.26, 95% CI 1.45-3.51).Conclusions: Targeting interventions and HCC surveillance at vulnerable groups is essential to improve CHB outcomes and to support progress towards international goals for the elimination of hepatitis infection as a public health threat.(c) 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of The Royal Society for Public Health.This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).