LIVER CANCER (Also
called: Hepatocellular carcinoma)
Your liver is the largest organ inside your body. It
filters harmful substances from the blood, digests fats
from food and stores the sugar that your body uses for
energy. Primary liver cancer starts in the liver. Metastatic
liver cancer starts somewhere else and spreads to your
liver.
Risk factors for primary liver cancer include
Having hepatitis
Having cirrhosis, or scarring of liver
Being male
Low weight at birth
Symptoms can include a lump or pain on the right side
of your abdomen and yellowing of the skin. However, you
may not have symptoms and the cancer may not be found
until it is advanced. This makes it harder to treat.
Treatment options include surgery, radiation, chemotherapy
or liver transplantation.
Definition of liver cancer: Primary
liver cancer is cancer that forms in the tissues of the
liver. Secondary liver cancer is cancer that spreads
to the liver from another part of the body.
Most primary liver cancers begin
in hepatocytes (liver cells). This type of cancer is
called hepatocellular carcinoma or malignant hepatoma.
Children may develop childhood hepatocellular carcinoma
or hepatoblastoma.
When liver cancer spreads (metastasizes)
outside the liver, the cancer cells tend to spread to
nearby lymph nodes and to the bones and lungs. When this
happens, the new tumor has the same kind of abnormal
cells as the primary tumor in the liver. For example,
if liver cancer spreads to the bones, the cancer cells
in the bones are actually liver cancer cells. The disease
is metastatic liver cancer, not bone cancer. It is treated
as liver cancer, not bone cancer. Doctors sometimes call
the new tumor "distant" disease.
Similarly, cancer that spreads to
the liver from another part of the body is different
from primary liver cancer. The cancer cells in the liver
are like the cells in the original tumor. When cancer
cells spread to the liver from another organ (such as
the colon, lung, or breast), doctors may call the tumor
in the liver a secondary tumor. In the United States,
secondary tumors in the liver are far more common than
primary tumors
on-line tools
MedlinePlus
- Liver Cancer Link
MedlinePlus will direct you to information to help answer health questions. MedlinePlus
brings together authoritative information from NLM, the National Institutes of
Health (NIH), and other government agencies and health-related organizations.
MedlinePlus also has extensive information about drugs, an illustrated medical
encyclopedia, interactive patient tutorials, and latest health news. To visit
MedlinePlus online for Liver Cancer with an extensive, constantly updated resource
list please click
here
Liver cancer
information
The Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC), the National
Cancer Institute (NCI) and the American
Cancer Society (ACS) among others, provide
many on-line cancer resources. Please make sure
you visit their constantly updated websites, reflecting
the latest scientific findings and visit the links
for more information about cervical cancer.
The National Cancer Institute (NCI)
has
up-to-date information for patients and practitioners
about Liver cancer. To go to NCI main web page please
click here
The American
Cancer Society (ACS) is
the nationwide community-based voluntary health
organization dedicated to eliminating cancer as
a major health problem by preventing cancer, saving
lives, and diminishing suffering from cancer, through
research, education, advocacy, and service. ACS
infomation about: Can
Liver Cancer Be Prevented? To get to
the ACS liver cancer information pages please
click here
“What
You Need To Know About™ Liver Cancer” On-line helps you to learn liver cancer symptoms,
diagnosis, treatment, and questions to ask your health
care provider. To read the publication, constantly
updated, online on the NCI website, please
click here
Secretariat
of the Pacific Community (SPC) Public
Health Programme is dedicated to improving
the health, and therefore the future, of all Pacific
Islanders. To see a list of selected publications
from SPC’s Healthy Pacific Lifestyle please
click here
Healthy
Pacific Lifestyle from the Secretariat
of the Pacific Community's website (SPC-HPLS) please
click here
The American
Liver Foundation
was created in 1976 by the American
Association for the Study of Liver Disease (AASLD).
This organization of scientists and healthcare professionals
was concerned with the rising incidence of liver
disease and the lack of awareness among both the
general public and the medical community. The mission,
the programs and the services provided by ALF complement
the great work of AASLD.
Printed materials
to download
This section has pdf
(Adobe Acrobat format) files of useful resources created
by various agencies that can be downloaded directly
from the pacificcancer.org website. The organization,
year of publication and size of the pdf file are listed
“What
You Need To Know About™ Liver Cancer”
NCI’s
booklet helps you to learn about liver cancer symptoms,
diagnosis, treatment, and questions to ask your health
care provider. NCI 2006, 51 pages (pdf 2MB). To download
the pdf file please
click here
ASCO
Answers: Liver Cancer ASCO Answers is
a series of fact sheets that provides an introduction
to a specific type of cancer. Each fact sheet is a
PDF that includes an overview of what the cancer is,
an illustration of where the cancer starts, how it
is treated, terms to know, and questions to ask the
doctor.
American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) 2008. 2 pages (pdf 292K). To download
the pdf please
click here
Acknowledgment: This
text is adapted from the NCI website.
