A Henry Ford Hospital study observed that hepatitis B does not increase the risk for pancreas cancer and that only age is a contributing factor.
The results contradict a prior study in 2008 that suggested a link between pancreas cancer and prior hepatitis B infection. Hepatitis B is an inflammation of the liver caused by a viral infection.
Study results will be presented at the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases' Annual Meeting in Boston.
Using data from Henry Ford Health System, physicians looked at more than 74,000 patients who were tested for hepatitis B between 1995 and 2008. In the overall analysis, only age was found to be a significant predictor for pancreas cancer. 
"We looked at the occurence rate of pancreas cancer among hepatitis B-infected patients over a 13-year period and observed that we could not confirm a higher risk for those with a prior exposure to hepatitis B, as a previous study suggested," says Jeffrey Tang, M.D., gastroenterologist at Henry Ford Hospital and main author of the study.
"When other factors are considered such as age, race, sex, HIV status, and the presence of diabetes only older age and presence of diabetes proved significant, whereas previous exposure to hepatitis B was no longer an important variable".
As per the National Cancer Institute, more than 35,000 people in the U.S. die of pancreas cancer each year and 42,000 new cases are diagnosed. The survival rates for patients with pancreas cancer are poor.
An estimated 800,000 to 1.4 million people have chronic hepatitis B infection, as per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2007, an estimated 43,000 people in the United States were newly infected with hepatitis B, eventhough a number of cases are not reported because a number of people do not have symptoms.
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