A new study shows that infection with hepatitis C virus (HCV) increases a person’s risk for a highly fatal cancer of the biliary tree, the bile carrying pathway between the liver and pancreas.

Despite the fact that they both infect the liver, the hepatitis A and hepatitis C viruses actually have very little in common. The two are far apart genetically, are transmitted differently, and produce very different diseases. Hepatitis A spreads through the consumption of fecal particles from an infected person (in pollution-contaminated food or water, for example), but hepatitis C is generally transmitted only by direct contact with infected blood.