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Liver Cancer – Signs and Symptoms of Liver Cancer

Friday, September 4, 2009 6:46:00 AM Posted by Cancer Centers

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. 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. 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 cites, 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

Liver Cancer - Causes, Symptoms and Treatment
The liver is the largest internal organ in the body. It is also known as primary liver cancer or hepatoma and hepatocellular carcinoma is a cancer arising from the liver. The liver performs several vital functions. It processes and stores many of the nutrients absorbed from the intestine. It starts in blood vessels and Hepatic adenomas are benign tumors that start from the main type of liver cells (hepatocytes). Women have a much higher chance of having one of these tumors if they take birth control pills, although this is rare.

Stopping the pills can cause the tumor to shrink. Hepatic adenomas cancer begins in many spots throughout the liver and is not confined to a single tumor. Hepatic tumors also called Liver cancer. Hepatic tumors are tumors or growths on or in the liver. There are many forms of liver tumors primary is Malignant. Malignant, primary liver cancer is hepatocellular carcinoma (also named hepatoma, which is a misnomer). These growths can be benign or malignant (cancerous).

They may be discovered on medical imaging (even for a different reason than the cancer itself). 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. Symptoms can include a lump or pain on the right side of your abdomen and yellowing of the skin.

Some researchers believe that cancer starts with damage to DNA the material that contains the instructions for every chemical process in your body, including the rate of cellular growth. DNA damage causes changes in these instructions. Liver cancer also occurs as metastatic cancer, which happens when tumors from other parts of the body spread (metastasize) to the liver. In the liver cancer some cells begin to grow abnormally. One result is that cells may begin to grow out of control and eventually form a tumor a mass of malignant cells.

In the United States, most cancer found in the liver spread there after originating elsewhere. Rather than being called liver cancer, this type of cancer in the liver is named after the organ in which it began such as metastatic colon cancer in cancer that starts in the colon and spreads to the liver.

Causes of liver Cancer
Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is the main causes of liver cancer. Liver cancer relates to (correlates with) the frequency of chronic hepatitis B virus infection. Studies in animals also have provided that hepatitis B virus can cause liver cancer. For example, liver cancer develops in other mammals that are naturally infected with hepatitis B virus-related viruses. Finally, by infecting transgenic mice with certain parts of the hepatitis B virus, scientists caused liver cancer to develop in mice that do not usually develop liver cancer.

Symptoms of liver cancer
Liver cancer is very common larges countries in world wide. Generally is discovered at a very advanced stage of cancer disease for several reasons. In addition, patients from these regions actually have more aggressive liver cancer disease. Live cancer tumor usually reaches an advanced stage and causes symptoms more rapidly. Abdominal pain is the most common symptom of liver cancer and usually signifies a very large tumor or widespread involvement of the liver and other symptom is weight loss. These symptoms are less common in individuals with liver cancer in the U.S.an additionally symptoms is as cites (abdominal fluid and swelling), jaundice (yellow color of the skin), or muscle wasting.

Treatment of liver cancer
The treatment of liver cancer is overall condition of the patient. First treatment if liver cancer is Chemotherapy. Chemotherapy is a powerful drug to kill cancer cells. Chemotherapy is not effective not some cases of liver cancer but type of chemotherapy are known as chemoembolization is an important part of treatment for HCC. Chemoembolization causes many of the same side effects as other forms of chemotherapy, including abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting. Second treatment is surgery. Surgery is best treatment for localized respectable cancer is usually an operation known as surgical resection. In some cases, the area of the liver where the cancer is found can be completely removed. Alcohol injection has been shown to improve survival in people with small hepatocellular tumors. It may also be used to help reduce symptoms in cases of metastatic liver cancer. The most common side effect is leaking of alcohol onto the liver or into the abdominal cavity.


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