The authors report their data on epidemiology of liver cancer (LC) in Trieste. Because of the high autopsy rate in the Province (the ratio autopsies/deaths is about 70%), the findings allow to draw some conclusions which could be regarded as a paradigm, at least in Northern Italy: 1) At autopsy LC prevalence is about 1.8% and the value has been increasing over the last few years; 2) 95.4% of LC are hepatocellular (HCC) and 92.9% of the latter occur in cirrhotic livers. Patients with HCC and cirrhosis are 6 years younger than those affected by HCC alone. On the basis of the above reported conclusions, the role of liver cirrhosis as preneoplastic condition is discussed
