Liver Cancer - a silent killer

Liver cancer is considered one of the most successful silent killer diseases. More than 250,000 people die of Liver cancer every year worldwide. Liver cancer is difficult to control and hard to detect in its early stages, it can be cured only when found at early stage.

Generally liver cancer is detected at its advanced stage (when it has started spreading), and by the time it’s too late. Most patients die within a year after diagnosis proves that the patient is carrying the disease.

There are two main kinds of liver cancer, Hepatoma (also called Hepatocellular Carcinoma or Malignant Carcinoma) and Cholangio carcinoma. Hepatoma is a cancer of hepatocytes (hepatocyte is a most important functioning liver cells). Hepatoma grows in liver as a tumor and it is a most primary type of liver cancer. If a patient has a history of Hepatitis B virus then he/she has to be more careful as he/she is at high risk to develop hepatoma.

Cholangio carcinoma is a cancer of bile-duct cells. It originates in bile duct and most of the times it is caused by infestation with a liver fluke Clonorchis (which is a parasite). Generally it is very hard to detect cancer when it starts growing in duct sheets and liver.

Although the exact cause of liver cancer is unknown, most of the time cancer started in other organs is the reason of liver cancer. As liver is a common and most functioning organ of body, it is the most common place where metastasis grows (Metastasis is called when a cancer from other organ cause tumor in liver leading to liver cancer).

Liver cancer shows very little or no symptoms at its early stage, but with time patient might feel pain it right upper abdominal area as the tumor causes stress on the neighboring cells, the patient feels full even with little quantity of food, males can face changes like breast swelling, intestinal bleeding caused by blood clotting problems, bruises in internal organs near the tumor.

It is unfortunate that even if cancer is detected in a patient, the patient has to be healthy enough to undergo various kinds of treatments like operation/surgery, radiation therapy, chemato therapy etc. Cancer treatments one side have many benefits but on the other side they can be harmful too as each treatment has its own side effects. Sometimes the patient may have to undergo liver transplantation where the liver of the patient is replaced with another. Operation/surgery is used to remove the cancer tumor, but it is not a very good option as cancer cells can spread to other organs via blood stream. In chemato therapy, different drugs are used to kill cancer cells; in radiation therapy X-rays and other high-energy rays are used to kill cancer cells.

Insomnia, constipation, delirium, fatigue, nausea and vomiting are some common side effects of different treatment that a patient might experience.

Liver cancer in some cases can be found by blood test for a protein called AFP. This protein is present in the blood of Fetuses but after birth it disappears. If AFP is found in blood of adults, it might be possible that they are carrying liver cancer. If someone is at high risk of liver cancer, blood test for AFP is important to find out liver cancer cells.

People having history of Hepatitis B, parasitic infestation need to get themselves checked regularly for liver cancer; there are tests like ultrasound which takes help of sound waves to produce picture of the internal organs of the body, CT scans which uses X-rays to take many pictures of the body which are combined by computer to give cross sectional view of body, Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scan, Angiography which uses a special type of die that is injected into the artery and then X-ray pictures are taken which help to study blood vessels and plan for further actions, blood tests and some other.

A person is at high risk of developing liver cancer if he/she ever had certain types of liver diseases, cirrhosis, tobacco use, Aflatoxins (substances made by a fungus that can contaminate peanuts, wheat, Soya beans, ground nuts, corns and rice), exposure to Vinyl Chloride and Thorium Dioxide, used steroids, used birth control pills.

It is very much possible to prevent liver cancer to certain extent if the factors given above are avoided.