1. ¹Department of Public Health, Kurume University School of Medicine, Kurume 830-0011, Japan
2. ²Department of Social Medicine, Division of Health Administration and Promotion, Faculty of Medicine, Tottori University, Yonago 683-8503, Japan
3. ³Fukuoka Institute of Health and Environmental Sciences, Dazaihu 818-0135, Japan
4. ⁴Department of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, Niigata University School of Medicine, Niigata 951-8510, Japan
5. ⁵Chugoku Occupational Health Association, Tottori 680-0942, Japan
6. ⁶Department of Preventive Medicine/Biostatistics and Medical decision Making, Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine, Nagoya 466-8550, Japan

Correspondence: Dr Y Fujita, E-mail: yf123@med.kurume-u.ac.jp

⁷Study group members are listed in Appendix A.

Received 25 October 2005; Revised 9 December 2005; Accepted 16 January 2006; Published online 7 February 2006.

Abstract

We evaluated the interaction between hepatitis C virus (HCV) and cigarette smoking on death from hepatocellular cancer in The Japan Collaborative Cohort Study. The odds ratio of death from HCC for smoking was 9.60 (1.50–61.35) and 1.71(0.58–5.08) among anti-HCV positive and negative individuals, respectively.