FOURTEEN cases of primary carcinoma of the liver have been observed among 797 consecutive necropsies at Kennedy Veterans Administration Hospital since 1946. This incidence (1.76%) stands in striking contrast to the 0.26% calculated average for Americans.1 Only in the Asiatic and African races have similar incidences been consistently observed, as indicated by the figures of 1.87%2 reported from Formosa, 1.3% from Java,3 and 1.2% among the Bantu tribes of South Africa.3 This unusual incidence has prompted us to review the clinicopathological features of our cases.
All our patients were men, and any analysis of incidence rates must take into consideration both the predominantly male population peculiar to a veterans' hospital and the known predilection of the disease for males. Table 1 illustrates this sex difference in various series. Assuming that the sex ratio is roughly 7:1 in favor of males, an incidence of 1.0% would be expected if our hospital