What are the treatments for liver cancer

Nowadays, people are paying more and more attention to their health, but there are still many diseases that affect people's health. Liver cancer is a disease that is relatively harmful to the human body. The treatment methods for liver cancer are different at different stages. Here are some treatment methods for liver cancer at different stages:

1. Liver transplantation: Liver transplantation is currently the only means to cure liver cancer. Liver transplantation solves three problems at the same time: (1) liver cancer; (2) liver cirrhosis; and (3) control of chronic hepatitis B. After liver transplantation, patients can resume normal life and have a higher quality of life. However, there is a shortage of donors, a long waiting time before surgery, high cost of liver transplantation, and the need to take immunosuppressants for a long time after surgery are its disadvantages. Indications: Liver cancer lesions are limited to the liver, there is no distant organ metastasis, and the functions of other organs in the body can tolerate the surgery.

2. Liver resection for liver cancer: In the past, present and for a long time in the future, liver resection is the main treatment method besides liver transplantation. As long as the patient's general condition allows (heart, lung, kidney and other organs function well), liver cancer is limited to one lobe or segment of the liver, and it is estimated that the remaining liver function after resection is sufficient to sustain the patient's life, radical resection can be performed. If the cirrhotic liver is still there after resection, the recurrence or recurrence rate of liver cancer is high, and the cirrhosis progresses progressively, complications of liver decompensation and portal hypertension (upper gastrointestinal bleeding, hepatic encephalopathy, refractory ascites, etc.) may occur, endangering the patient's life.

3. Ablation therapy: refers to a type of treatment method that directly kills tumors locally under the guidance of imaging technology. Currently, radiofrequency and microwave ablation and anhydrous alcohol injection are the most commonly used. Indications: For single tumors with a diameter of ≤5cm or multiple nodules with a maximum diameter of ≤3cm and no more than 3 nodules, without blood vessel or bile duct invasion or distant metastasis, and early liver cancer patients with liver function of Child-Pugh A or B, radiofrequency or microwave ablation is the best choice other than surgery.

4. Interventional treatment: including transcatheter arterial chemotherapy (HAI), transcatheter arterial embolization (HAE) and transcatheter embolization (TACE). HAI alone is not enough. TACE is currently the main interventional treatment method. Indications: (1) Patients with advanced primary liver cancer who cannot be surgically removed; (2) Patients who can be surgically removed but cannot or are unwilling to undergo surgery due to other reasons (such as advanced age, severe liver cirrhosis, etc.). For the above patients, radiological interventional treatment can be used as the first choice of non-surgical treatment.

5. Radiotherapy: Radiotherapy is one of the basic means of treating malignant tumors. However, before the 1990s, patients with primary liver cancer rarely received radiotherapy due to its poor effect and great damage to the liver. After the mid-1990s, modern radiotherapy techniques such as three-dimensional conformal radiotherapy and intensity-modulated conformal radiotherapy gradually matured, providing new opportunities for the application of radiotherapy in the treatment of liver cancer. Indications for radiotherapy of liver cancer: ① The tumor is localized and cannot be surgically removed due to poor liver function, or the tumor is located in an important anatomical structure and cannot be technically removed, or surgery is refused. ② Patients with residual lesions after surgery. ③ Local tumors in the liver need to be treated, otherwise some complications will occur, such as obstruction of the portal bile duct, tumor thrombus of the portal vein and hepatic vein. Patients with obstruction of the portal bile duct can first undergo drainage to relieve jaundice, and then undergo radiotherapy. ④ Treatment of distant metastases, such as lymph node metastasis, adrenal metastasis, and bone metastasis. Radiotherapy can alleviate the patient's symptoms and improve the quality of life.

6. Biological therapy and molecular targeted therapy: At present, most biological treatment methods or technologies are still in the stage of research and development and clinical trials, and a small part has been applied in clinical practice. In recent years, molecular targeted drugs for the treatment of liver cancer have become a new research hotspot and have received high attention. They mainly include: ① anti-EGFR drugs, such as erlotinib and cetuximab; ② anti-angiogenic drugs, such as bevacizumab and brivanib; ③ signal transduction pathway inhibitors, such as mTOR inhibitor everolimus (RAD001); ④ multi-target inhibitors, such as sorafenib and sunitinib.

7. Traditional Chinese medicine treatment: It is currently believed that traditional Chinese medicine can be used as an adjuvant treatment for liver cancer, helping to reduce the toxicity of radio and chemotherapy, improve cancer-related symptoms, improve the quality of life, and potentially prolong survival.

8. Systemic chemotherapy for primary liver cancer: Systemic chemotherapy has been used to treat primary liver cancer since the 1950s. Most traditional chemotherapy drugs, including doxorubicin (ADM), 5-fluorouracil (5-Fu), cisplatin (PDD) and mitomycin (MMC), have been tried to treat liver cancer, but the efficacy of single drugs is relatively low (generally <10%), with poor reproducibility, obvious toxicity and side effects, and no improvement in survival time. Therefore, it has stagnated for many years, and there is no standard chemotherapy drug or regimen to date. It is currently believed that for patients with advanced primary liver cancer without contraindications, systemic chemotherapy is superior to general supportive treatment and is still an optional treatment method. Its main indications are: (1) advanced patients with extrahepatic metastasis; (2) patients with localized lesions but not suitable for surgical treatment and hepatic artery interventional chemoembolization; (3) patients with portal vein main trunk cancer thrombus.

If you have liver cancer, you must go to a regular hospital for examination in time, and then determine what stage of liver cancer you are in, and then choose the appropriate treatment method for treatment. In this way, you can get better treatment results. Everyone must pay more attention to their physical condition.