Abstract 3618: Biosocial determinants of health disparities among racial/ethnic minorities with chronic liver disease and liver cancer

Abstract Background: Metabolic disorders and chronic liver disease (CLD) play crucial roles in the development and progression of liver cancer (LC) like hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Previous studies suggest that the ethnic minority population increasingly suffers from CLD and LC. Thus, the impact of biosocial factors contributing to CLD and LC among minority populations requires further investigation. Using the All of Us database, this study aimed to understand the biosocial factors contributing to CLD and LC among racial subgroups. Methods: Using All of Us Researcher Workbench, we analyzed in a cohort of 33767 CLD [non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), alcoholic liver disease (ALD), and Hepatitis B and C] patients among different ethnic groups. We investigated the impact of various social determinants of health (SDOH) factors and genetic variations in key liver disease genes (PNPLA3, TM6SF2, MBOAT7, GCKR, and HSD17B13). Additionally, we explored metabolic pathways contributing to LC progression were analyzed using MACdb, GENT2, and TCGA databases and publicly available RNASeq data. Results: Several confounding factors associated with CLD in Hispanic (HA) and African American (AA) populations compared to the non-Hispanic White (NHW) populations were identified in this study. HA and AA CLD patients suffer more from high socioeconomic status (SES) barriers. While genetic variations in the aforementioned genes were associated with CLD risk, their impact varied across ethnic groups. Metabolomic data of urinary metabolites from LC patients and healthy volunteers suggest hypoxanthine is upregulated in LC patients. TCGA analysis of hypoxanthine-related genes in the LC tumors confirmed that xanthine dehydrogenase (XDH), which converts hypoxanthine to uric acid, is down-regulated in the tumors of Asian patients. Survival analysis confirmed poor overall survival among the Asian and AA LC patients with lower XDH expression in their tumors. Conclusions: Our study highlights the complex interplay of social, genetic, and metabolic factors in CLD and LC disparities. Further research is needed in a larger cohort to eliminate the root causes of these SES and cancer signaling disparities to obtain a more equitable survival outcome from CLD and LC in minority populations. Citation Format: Tagari Samanta, Jun Hyoung Park, Panagiotis Katsonis, Benny Abraham Kaipparettu. Biosocial determinants of health disparities among racial/ethnic minorities with chronic liver disease and liver cancer [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2025; Part 1 (Regular Abstracts); 2025 Apr 25-30; Chicago, IL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2025;85(8_Suppl_1):Abstract nr 3618.