Introduction: Liver cancer is one of the most important and intensifying challenges of global health, especially in developing countries. The aim of this study was to evaluate the epidemiology of liver cancer incidence and mortality in 185 countries and determinate its relationship with the Human Development Index (HDI) in 2018.
Materials and Methods: The present study is a descriptive cross-sectional study that is based on extraction of cancer incidence data and cancer mortality rates from the World Bank for Cancer in 2018. The incidence and mortality rates and liver cancer distribution maps were drawn for World countries. To analyze data, correlation test and regression tests were used to evaluate the correlation between the incidence and mortality with HDI. The statistical analysis was carried out by Stata-14 and the significance level was estimated at the level of 0.05.
Results: According to the results of the cancer record in 2018, 18078957 cases of cancer were recorded, and 841080 cases (4.7% of all cancers) were related to liver cancer. The highest incidence and mortality of liver cancer was in Asia and in the countries of Mongolia and Egypt. The results showed that there is a negative correlation between incidence rate and mortality of liver cancer with HDI index. This correlation was not significant between the incidence rate of liver cancer and HDI index (r=-0.09, p>0.05). While there was a negative and significant correlation between liver cancer mortality and HDI index (r=-0.149, p<0.05). But this correlation was not significant in the development of disease (p>0.05). The results showed that there was a negative correlation between the incidence rate of liver cancer with GNI, MYS, LEB and EYS, which was not statistically significant (p>0.05), while the correlation between mortality rate and MYS was significant (r=-0.154, p<0.05).
Conclusions: The highest incidence and mortality of liver cancer is related to the Asian continent. Therefore, attention to the development index, especially in the continents of Asia, can be effective in reducing the incidence and mortality of the disease.