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Copyright ©The Author(s) 2019. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Feb 14, 2019; 25(6): 659-671
Published online Feb 14, 2019. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v25.i6.659
Cancer risk in primary sclerosing cholangitis: Epidemiology, prevention, and surveillance strategies
Brian M Fung, Keith D Lindor, James H Tabibian
Brian M Fung, UCLA-Olive View Internal Medicine Residency Program, Olive View-UCLA Medical Center, Sylmar, CA 91342, United States
Keith D Lindor, Office of the University Provost, Arizona State University, Phoenix, AZ 85004, United States
James H Tabibian, Division of Gastroenterology, Department of Medicine, Olive View-UCLA Medical Center, Sylmar, CA 91342, United States
Author contributions: Tabibian JH and Fung BM reviewed the literature for relevant original studies and other content; Fung BM designed and/or formatted the figures; Tabibian JH and Lindor KD reviewed the figures; Fung BM drafted the manuscript; Tabibian JH and Lindor KD provided supervision; all authors provided critical input and approved of the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors have no financial disclosures or conflicts of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: James H Tabibian, MD, PhD, Health Sciences Clinical Associate Professor, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Director of Endoscopy, Department of Medicine, Olive View-UCLA Medical Center, 14445 Olive View Drive, 2B-182, Sylmar, CA 91342, United States. jtabibian@dhs.lacounty.gov
Telephone: +1-747-2103205 Fax: +1-747-2104573
Received: October 30, 2018
Peer-review started: November 1, 2018
First decision: November 29, 2018
Revised: January 10, 2019
Accepted: January 14, 2019
Article in press: January 15, 2019
Published online: February 14, 2019
Core Tip

Core tip: Primary sclerosing cholangitis is a rare cholestatic liver disease characterized by progressive fibroinflammatory destruction of the bile ducts. It is associated with a significantly increased risk of malignancy over the general population, with nearly 50% of deaths in patients with primary sclerosing cholangitis caused by cancer, thus necessitating robust surveillance strategies. In this article, we provide a synopsis of the epidemiology, prevention, and surveillance of cancers in patients with primary sclerosing cholangitis.