Influence of Social Determinants of Health on the Management of HCC in the French National Cohort Study CHIEF

With 8,000 related deaths per year, HCC is one of the most dangerous cancers in France. The main reason for the poor prognosis of HCC is most often a diagnosis at an advanced stage ineligible for curative treatment. In the field of oncology, low participation to screening is closely linked to socioeconomic status (e.g. level of education, income, employment). In HCC, the socioeconomic status is linked to incidence, overall survival and treatment allocation in US, UK and Australia. This suggests that the social environment should be taken into account when designing interventions and policies that allows facilitating the medical pathways for patients with HCC with the ultimate goal of improving the overall prognosis. However, the studies assessing the impact of social determinants on the management of HCC in France are limited. Bryère at al. reported that the highest incidence and the worst prognosis of HCC were observed in the most disadvantaged populations in France. To date, there is no available data concerning the influence of social determinants on: implementation of surveillance programs of HCC, stage of disease at the time of diagnosis or treatment allocation. This data is essential for better understanding the geographic disparities observed in France and for developing the strategies to remedy them.

CHIEF is a multicenter longitudinal observational study of patients with HCC (ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT04348838), that will collect the exhaustive data including patient and tumor characteristics, diagnostic circumstances and modalities, care pathway from diagnostic imaging to referral to expert center, treatment allocation and implementation, and 5-year follow up including recurrent assessment of quality of life.

Social-CHIEF is an ancillary study to the CHIEF cohort (approved by CHIEF scientific committee). The population of this study will consist in a subset of patients from the CHIEF prospectively included or already recruited who accept to participate in this study. The data collected in CHIEF will be retrieved from the CHIEF main database and additional data about social determinants will be specifically investigated by self-administrated questionnaires. The results obtained will provide a better understanding of the influence of social determinants on health trajectories of HCC patients. These data will be essential in recommending new health policies and in designing innovative intervention studies to address social disparities.