[Primary liver cancer and hepatitis B infection in Senegal. Comparison of cancer patients with 2 control groups].

A case/control study has been carried out to determine the prevalence of hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) and antibody (anti-HBs) in patients with primary liver cancer (PLC), and age/sex matched hospital controls with cancers of other sites (OCC) and similarly matched controls without cancer (NCC). HBsAg was found in 61.2% of 165 cases of PLC, as compared to 11.7% of 154 OCC and 11.3% of 328 NCC. The frequency of HBsAg in PLC patients was significantly higher (72.2%) in those with detectable alpha-fetoprotein as compared to those without (40.3%).