Table 1.

Baseline demographic and lifestyle characteristics of study participants who developed hepatocellular carcinoma (cases) and those who remained cancer free (controls), The Singapore Chinse Health Study and The Shanghai Cohort Study

Characteristic	Singapore Cohort Study				Shanghai Cohort Study
	Cases	Controls	Pa		Cases	Controls	Pa
Number of subjects	100	100			100	100
Age (year), mean ± SD	66.4 ± 7.1	66.3 ± 6.9	0.936		58.5 ± 4.3	58.5 ± 4.2	0.941
Body mass index (kg/m2)	24.2 ± 3.8	23.8 ± 3.5	0.461		22.2 ± 3.6	22.4 ± 3.1	0.787
Level of body mass index, %
<18.5 (kg/m2)	3	3	0.871		10	8	0.433
18.5 – <23.0	43	43			51	59
23.0 – <27.5	36	40			30	29
≥27.5	18	14			9	4
Highest level of education, %			0.125				0.954
No formal education	22	12			7	6
Primary school	49	50			29	30
Secondary school or above	29	38			64	64
Cigarette smoking, %			0.553				0.583
Never smokers	44	49			39	46
Former smokers	33	34			9	7
Current smokers	23	17			52	47
Alcohol drinking, %			0.209				0.714
Nondrinkers	75	79			62	63
Moderate drinkers	22	21			26	22
Heavy drinkersb	3	0			12	15
History of type 2 diabetes, %			0.002				0.561
No	70	88			99	98
Yes	30	17			1	2
HBsAg serology, %			<0.001				<0.001
Negative	59	91			47	89
Positive	41	9			53	11
Anti-HCV serology %c
Negative	98.3	98.3	1.000		100	98.1	1.000
Positive	1.7	1.7			0	1.9

^a2-sided P values were based on t test for continuous variables or chi-square test for categorical variables;

^bHeavy drinking was defined as >3 drinks/day for men and >2 drinks/day for women, and lower levels as moderate drinking;

^cBased on 60 cases and 59 controls in the Singapore cohort study and 54 cases and 54 controls in the Shanghai cohort study who were available with serum antibodies to hepatitis C (anti-HCV) virus for previous studies (24, 25).