Is liver cancer really an infectious disease?

If your relatives or friends have liver cancer, and you live with the patients day and night, you are worried that you will also get liver cancer. Is liver cancer contagious? Will it spread widely between people like infectious diseases such as measles and hepatitis? Liver cancer is not contagious, but people over 40 years old with a history of hepatitis for more than 5 years or positive hepatitis B virus antigen markers, people with a history of alcoholism for more than 5 to 8 years and clinical manifestations of chronic liver disease, and patients with confirmed cirrhosis are two high-risk groups for liver cancer. Experts remind these two groups that serum alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) should be tested every six months; if AFP is found to be elevated but less than 200 micrograms/liter, it should be frequently reviewed and dynamically observed until it is excluded or diagnosed. The B-ultrasound that we are all very familiar with can make up for the error of alpha-fetoprotein testing. Patients with conditions are best to check B-ultrasound and alpha-fetoprotein simultaneously. Alpha-fetoprotein testing is an ideal and simple method for screening small liver cancers, and B-ultrasound examination is an important imaging diagnostic method for detecting small liver cancers. If the patient's AFP continues to rise, and ultrasound and CT scans cannot support the diagnosis, further hepatic artery angiography should be performed. Experts specifically pointed out that liver cancer is called the "king of cancers" because it develops rapidly, is difficult to treat, has poor efficacy, and has a very high mortality rate in the near future. Therefore, early detection is very important. In particular, early detection of small liver cancer can be said to save a life. The so-called small liver cancer refers to a single cancer.

Epidemiological studies have shown that hepatitis virus infection has a synergistic carcinogenic effect with factors such as aflatoxin, drinking water pollution, alcoholism, smoking, nitrosamines, oral contraceptives, trace element imbalance, and genetics. Due to the combined influence of the above factors, liver cells in the human body may lose normal regulation and grow excessively and infinitely, eventually forming a tumor in the liver that can invade and destroy normal tissues and organs, forming liver cancer. Liver cancer cells not only occur in the liver, but also metastasize to other parts and form new tumors.

Liver cancer is not contagious, but everyone should be reminded that the occurrence of liver cancer is closely related to infectious diseases such as hepatitis B and hepatitis C. Therefore, strengthening the prevention and treatment of various types of hepatitis will undoubtedly play an effective role in curbing the occurrence of liver cancer.