Liver Cancer

Home
Liver Cancer

Liver Cancer

Liver cancer happens when normal cells in the liver change into abnormal cells and grow out of control. The liver is a big organ in the upper right side of the belly

Liver cancer happens when normal cells in the liver change into abnormal cells and grow out of control. The liver is a big organ in the upper right side of the belly.

What are the symptoms of liver cancer?

Liver cancer does not usually cause any symptoms of its own. A few patients might have a lump or mild pain in the upper belly, feel full early on when they try to eat, or lose weight.

Others might have symptoms that are caused by the liver disease they had before they got cancer. Those symptoms can get worse or come back because of the cancer. They include:

Swelling of the belly or legs
The skin or white part of the eyes turning yellow

The skin or white part of the eyes turning yellow.

Is there a test for liver cancer?

Yes. If your doctor suspects you have liver cancer, they will do 1 or more of the following tests:

Blood tests
An MRI scan, CT scan, ultrasound, or other imaging test – Imaging tests create pictures of the inside of the body and can show abnormal growths.
Biopsy – For this test, a doctor will remove a small sample of tissue from the liver. Another doctor will look at the sample under a microscope to see if it has cancer.

What is liver cancer staging?

Cancer staging is a way in which doctors find out if a cancer has spread past the layer of tissue where it began and, if so, how far.

How is liver cancer treated?

Liver cancer can be treated in different ways. Treatment depends on the stage of your cancer. It also depends on how healthy your liver is (in other words, how serious your liver disease was before you got cancer). The different treatments include:

Surgery – Liver cancer can sometimes be treated with surgery to remove the part of the liver with the cancer.
Liver transplant – A liver transplant is a type of surgery in which a doctor replaces a diseased liver with a healthy liver from another person.
Ablation therapy – Ablation therapy is a procedure that can kill cancer cells in the liver. It does not involve surgery. Doctors can do ablation therapy in different ways. They can kill the cancer cells using heat, microwaves, a laser, or radiation therapy.
Blocking the cancer's blood supply – Doctors can do a procedure called "embolization" to block off the blood vessel that sends blood to the cancer. This keeps the cancer from growing by "starving" it of its blood supply. Sometimes, the embolization procedure is combined with chemotherapy ("chemoembolization") or radiation ("radioembolization").
Immunotherapy – This is the term doctors use for medicines that work with the body's infection-fighting system (the "immune system") to stop cancer growth.
Chemotherapy – Chemotherapy is the medical term for medicines that kill cancer cells or stop them from growing.

Liver Cancer

Subscribe to Our Newsletter