Natural history of liver fluke infection underpins epidemiological patterns of biliary cancer.

ABSTRACT: Pathogens are major drivers of cancer globally and the processes of infection and carcinogenesis unfold over decades making them difficult to observe in human or natural populations. We investigate these hidden dynamics for the foodborne trematode Opisthorchis viverrini, which is a primary cause of biliary cancer (cholangiocarcinoma) and infects 12 million people in Southeast Asia. In tumors from patients exposed to O. viverrini, we find that the earliest chromosomal amplifications carrying driver genes occurred at 30 y old on average, two to four decades before cancer diagnosis, and disproportionately contain TP53, PTEN and FGFR2 genes. We then fitted transmission models to parasitological data from Thailand spanning 27 y (n = 11,517) finding that

SUBMITTER: Crellen T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12541340 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature