为什么男性容易得肝癌

2002落叶

Why Women Have Lower Liver Cancer Rates: Estrogen May Inhibit Liver Cancer

Researchers, reporting in the July 6, 2007 issue of Science, say estrogen
may play a key role in suppressing liver cancer. This may explain why women
have lower rates of liver cancer, despite long-term infection with HBV or
the hepatitis C virus (HCV). Men have three to five times the rate of liver
cancer (also called hepatocellular carcinoma or HHC) than women. Mice
experience that same gender difference in HCC. Researchers treated male and
female mice with diethylnitrosamine (DEN), a liver cancercausing compound,
to determine what caused the higher cancer rate in males. They found that
the estrogen in female mice decreased the level of liver inflammation and
liver cell injury resulting from DEN exposure. By suppressing inflammation,
estrogen may help prevent the injury and excessive cell proliferation that
can lead to liver tumors. When researchers removed estrogen from female
mice, their liver cancer rates were equal to that of male mice. “We propose
that estrogen- mediated inhibition of serum interleukin-6 (which causes
inflammation) production by Kupffer cells reduces liver cancer risk in
females, and these findings may be used to prevent HCC in males,” the
researchers wrote.