Topic Highlight
Copyright ©2014 Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. May 21, 2014; 20(19): 5721-5729
Published online May 21, 2014. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v20.i19.5721
Hepatitis B virus infection and intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma
Hua-Bang Zhou, Jing-Yi Hu, He-Ping Hu
Hua-Bang Zhou, He-Ping Hu, Department I of Hepatobiliary Diseases, Eastern Hepatobiliary Surgery Hospital, Second Military Medical University, Shanghai 200438, China
Jing-Yi Hu, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200025, China
Author contributions: Three authors substantially contributed to the article and approved the final version to be published.
Correspondence to: He-Ping Hu, MD, Professor, Department I of Hepatobiliary Diseases, Eastern Hepatobiliary Surgery Hospital, Second Military Medical University, No. 225 Changhai Road, Shanghai 200438, China. hp-hu@medmail.com.cn
Telephone: +86-21-81875141 Fax: +86-21-81875141
Received: September 27, 2013
Revised: October 30, 2013
Accepted: December 12, 2013
Published online: May 21, 2014
Processing time: 232 Days and 13.1 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC) is a devastating malignant tumor. Its incidence and mortality is increasing drastically over the past two decades worldwide, though the cause for this rise in incidence is unclear. The etiology and carcinogenesis of ICC remain inconclusive. Recent studies suggest that hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection plays an important etiological role in ICC development. HBV-associated ICC holds many clinicopathological similarities with HBV-associated hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), and HBV-associated ICC patients may have a better prognosis than ICC patients without HBV infection. HBV-associated ICC and HBV-associated HCC may share a common disease process for carcinogenesis, through a similar long-term inflammatory carcinogenic process, and both possibly arise from hepatic progenitor cells.