Optimizing HCC Screening: Strategies to Overcome Common Barriers

Announcer:

You’re listening to Project Oncology on ReachMD. On this episode, we’ll hear from Dr. Hannah Lee, who is an Associate Professor of Internal Medicine and a transplant hepatologist at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. Dr. Lee is here to discuss common barriers to hepatocellular carcinoma screening and how we can overcome them. Here she is now.

Dr. Lee:

Some of the things that come to mind is the health disparities that exist in our society right here in the US, and patients who have easier access to healthcare have the advantage. I think about liver cancer disparities that particularly affect certain racial ethnic groups. The mortality for liver cancer for our Black community continues to rise. It probably has to do with medical barriers: barriers to access, maybe mistrust with the healthcare system, and obviously, perhaps socioeconomically disadvantaged situations. I think any patient who is socioeconomically disadvantaged—any community, I should say—are disproportionately at a disadvantage and have disparities in this. Rural versus urban: those who live out in the rural areas have less advantage. And then we also know liver cancer affects the Alaska Native and the American Indian. Those are rising too. And so I think this is a complex situation with a lot of social determinants of health playing a role in all of this. That’s one big, complex piece.

And the other is just simply educating the community doctors and the primary care doctors.  We know they have a lot on their plate already to deal with, but we’re trying to educate the community doctors to keep an eye out for patients who may be at risk, especially those with MASLD. 

I think it comes back down to education, community awareness, and going out; I think we need to change our posture as medical providers. This is my opinion, that we don’t wait for patients to come to us. I think we need to go out into the communities, especially in the disadvantaged communities. We need to go out there to their communities and to their local community leaders to bring awareness and education so that patients are aware—that’s one side—and then educating the community doctors. This is a simplified thing. I think this is a complex situation, but this is one piece that we can do.

Announcer:

That was Dr. Hannah Lee discussing how we overcome common barriers to hepatocellular carcinoma screening. To access this and other episodes in our series, visit Project Oncology on ReachMD.com, where you can Be Part of the Knowledge. Thanks for listening.