Liver cancer kills more than 700,000 people a year. But three in five cases could be prevented, according to a comprehensive analysis published on Monday in the journal Lancet.

The research found that prevention could be accomplished by addressing the disease’s major causes: hepatitis B, hepatitis C, alcohol-associated liver disease and liver disease linked to metabolic risk factors like obesity.

With nearly 900,000 new cases globally each year, liver cancer is the sixth most common cancer and the third leading cause of death from cancer. If cases continue to rise at the current rate, the number of new annual diagnoses will almost double, rising to 1.5 million globally in 2050, the study predicted. The researchers estimated that liver disease from alcohol use and metabolic dysfunction together would account for nearly one-third of new liver cancer cases by then.

The findings align with what liver specialists have seen in their clinics for years.

“Liver cancer is common, it causes immense suffering and death, and the saddest part for me as a physician is that most of the cases are preventable,” said Dr. Brian P. Lee, an associate professor of medicine at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California, who was not involved in the study.

Improved screening, vaccination and treatment in recent years have helped stem viral hepatitis, especially in the United States. But the threat of liver cancer from heavy alcohol use and metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease, or MASLD, formerly known as nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, “has been underrecognized and underestimated,” said Dr. Ahmed Kaseb, a professor of gastrointestinal medical oncology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, who was not associated with the study.

A ‘Highway’ to Liver Cancer

A vast majority of liver cancers arise in people with cirrhosis, said Dr. Hashem El-Serag, the chair of the department of medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Texas and one of the authors of the new study. Cirrhosis, or advanced and largely irreversible scarring of the liver, damages healthy tissue and prevents the organ from working normally.