Liver Cancer In Nutshell
Liver cancer is long known entity to the human race and the research into it has led to better understanding and evolution of surgical sciences. The newer treatment modalities have yielded better longevity and quality of life. Liver tumours are usually asymptomatic till they obstruct biliary excretion passage i.e. bile duct or destroy significant liver parenchyma to cause jaundice. Such jaundiced patients usually have severe itching, yellowing of eyes and high colour urine. Due to less to no bile secretion in intestines the patients get clay colour stools. As the tumours grow, patients get pain, nausea, anorexia and ultimately weight loss.
Simple liver function tests and tumour markers like AFP, CA 19-9 along with imaging modalities like CT/ MRI scan can pick up liver cancers. But a Biopsy is a must for confirmation. It can be done with needle under USG or CT scan guide.
The treatment is surgery for initial stages and combination of other adjunct modalities with surgery like TACE i.e. trans arterial chemoembolization, TARE i.e. trans arterial radioembolization etc. For the tumours that are disseminated or inoperable, targeted therapy or chemotherapy are given.
the prognosis depends on the initial stage at presentation and liver function. Hence the most important is to pick up the lesions at early stage.