An age old preference for eating uncooked fish dishes like "koi-pla" puts people in SE Asia at risk of ingesting trematodes that can cause a type of liver cancer called cholangiocarcinoma (cancer of the bile ducts), say researchers in this week's PLoS Medicine.
Banchob Sripa (Khon Kaen University) and colleagues discuss the mechanisms by which the food-borne trematode Opisthorchis viverrini (the SE Asian liver fluke) causes cholangiocarcinoma.
The fluke is endemic to Thailand, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Vietnam, and Cambodia. In Thailand alone, 6 million people are thought to be infected with the fluke.
Khon Kaen University