What Is Metastatic Liver Cancer?
There are two basic ways of describing liver cancer. The first is primary liver cancer. This is liver cancer that actually begins in the liver and if caught early enough only affects the liver. The other is secondary liver cancer. Secondary liver cancer occurs when the cancer actually starts in another part of the body such as the lungs, colon or pancreas and spreads or metastasizes to the liver. Secondary liver cancer is often called metastatic liver cancer.
Secondary liver cancer is harder to treat than cancer that originates in the liver because it has spread from somewhere else which means that more cells have been affected by cancer thus there is a need to destroy or kill more cells to effectively treat the cancer.
The first step in treating any cancer is finding it and determining which type it is, primary or secondary. There are tests that your doctor can perform to determine this. The tests used to determine this are called imaging tests. These are tests that are used to look inside your body at the condition of different parts of your body. Imaging tests may include ultrasound, CT scans and MRI’s or magnetic resonance imaging. This allows doctors to see where the cancer is located as well as the point of origin and how many locations of the body are affected.
Once these tests have been performed and it has been determined that an individual is in fact affected by metastatic liver cancer it is necessary to determine how far advanced the disease has become. After this is done your doctor will discuss with you the different options available for treatment.
Unfortunately the survival rate for any type of liver cancer is low. However this increases in cases where the cancer is discovered relatively early and the tumor involved is not large. The longer a person has liver cancer without detection the lower the chances of survival become. This is because it is a fairly fast spreading cancer and can quickly affect many other areas of the body.
In many cases there are no symptoms present with secondary liver cancer, however when symptoms are present they may include anorexia, unexplained weight loss, jaundice, fever, sweats, pain in the upper abdomen area and nausea. If you experience any of these symptoms or any other unusual feelings it is important to seek the counsel of a medical care professional. The longer you wait the lower your chances for successful treatment.
There are treatments available for metastatic liver cancer however these treatments are dependent on several factors such as the condition of the individual, the origination of the cancer, how many tumors are affected, and how much the cancer has spread. As with any disease the longer you wait the worse it gets. Advanced stages of liver cancer are very difficult to treat and have a low survival rate. The sooner you can begin the treatment for this disease the better your chances are likely going to be.
