Liver Cancer – Signs and Symptoms of Liver Cancer

Liver cancer (hepatocellular carcinoma) is a cancer arising from the liver. It is also known as primary liver cancer or hepatoma. The liver is made up of different cell types (for example, bile ducts, blood vessels, and fat-storing cells). However, liver cells (hepatocytes) make up 80% of the liver tissue. Thus, the majority of primary liver cancers (over 90 to 95%) arises from liver cells and is called hepatocellular cancer or carcinoma.

Primary liver cancer is rarely discovered early and often doesn’t respond to current treatments — thus, the prognosis is often poor. Even when treatments fail to provide much improvement in the liver cancer itself, pain and other signs and symptoms caused by liver cancer can be aggressively treated to improve quality of life. But the most important news about primary liver cancer is that you can greatly reduce your risk by protecting yourself from hepatitis infection and cirrhosis, the leading causes of the disease.

Secondary Liver Cancer Most of the time when cancer is found in the liver it did not start there but spread to the liver from a cancer that began somewhere else in the body. These tumors are named after the place where they began (the primary site) and are further described as metastatic. For example, cancer that started in the lung and spread to the liver is called metastatic lung cancer to the liver. The rest of the information given here covers only primary liver cancer, that is, cancer that starts in the liver.

Signs and Symptoms of Liver Cancer

Most people don’t have signs and symptoms in the early stages of liver cancer, which means the disease may not be detected until it’s quite advanced. When symptoms do appear, they may include some or all of the following:

Abdominal pain, especially in the upper right part of your abdomen, that may extend into your back and shoulder. Pain that occurs in the right upper area of the abdomen. The liver is a very nerve rich organ and can be sensitive to changes.

Appetite – People with liver cancer may experience a continuous loss of appetite or feel very full after a small meal.

Worsened hepatitis or cirrhosis symptoms – More severe symptoms in people who have chronic hepatitis or cirrhosis are signs of liver cancer. These symptoms could include fluid in the abdomen, a symptom known as ascites, or the need for more and more water tablets (diuretics) to control the amount of fluid in the abdomen.

Abdominal pain is a very common symptom, and also common in children. Unfortunately, because there are so many possible causes of abdominal pain, and many cases are not serious, many cases of acute appendicitis are misdiagnosed each year as gastroenteritis or some other similar condition, especially in children and infants. Although appendicitis is an uncommon condition, it can be fatal. And there are many other serious conditions that may cause abdominal pain.

Jaundice (yellowing of the skin and the whites of the eyes caused by an accumulation of bile pigment -bilirubin- in the blood).

Esophageal varices (occurs when the tumor invaded and blocked the portal vein and the blood drains through esophageal veins).

Rarely: bleeding problems. Many of the proteins required for proper blood clotting are created in the liver. Remove these proteins and blood clotting decreases.

Chronic weight loss or wasting. The liver processes all the building blocks. If it fails to process, the body fails to maintain itself.

Watch video related to liver cancer

In this video, Hans Rosling uses liver cancer statistics to show how cancer data from IARC ( International Agency for research on Cancer) can be displayed as moving bubbles in Gapminder World. In this visual way, you can easily compare data for the most common cancers and rapidly understand that each of them have different distributions in the world. Liver cancer is mainly caused by chronic infection by the Hepatitis B virus (and also by the Hepatitis C virus). As this infection is most common in China and other parts of East Asia, as well as in Africa South of the Sahara, it is the countries in these regions that bear the main burden of Liver Cancer in the World (independent of if they have low, middle or high income). Comparing gender differences indicate that higher alcohol consumption in men may explain why the rate of liver cancer in men is twice as high as in women. is.gd – New cases of liver cancer per 100 000 men (with size showing the total number of new cases of liver cancer)

Help answer the question about liver cancer

Metastatic liver cancer- am looking for medical center that does the most research in that area?
I contracted colon cancer about three years ago and had it removed by resection. This was followed by chemo using oxiplatin anf FU-5. I faired really well except for neural damage in feet. Now a spot has appeared in the upper portion of my liver which is metastatic from the colon. A local liver surgeon is planning a resection and this will undoubted be followed by more chemo. I understand the real risk is from other seedlings of the cancer which may now start to appear either in the liver or other organs and that my defenses will be really low to fight them. I am looking to find the research center who most commonly deals with metastatic colon cancer to learn as much as possible about new techniques, drugs, or whatever. I might go there for the surgery or at a minimum get a second opinion on procedure etc.

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