What is obstructive jaundice of liver cancer

There are generally two types of jaundice associated with liver cancer: hepatocellular jaundice, obstructive jaundice, or both. This article introduces the causes of two different types of jaundice.

There are four causes of obstructive jaundice:

1. Cancer compresses or invades the main bile duct, causing it to be blocked, thereby hindering bile excretion and causing obstructive jaundice;

2. Enlarged malignant lymph nodes metastasized to the liver portal area compress the common bile duct and cause obstruction, which is another cause of obstructive jaundice;

3. The tumor extensively invades the small bile ducts, and the tumor tissue grows along the bile ducts into the main bile ducts, causing obstruction and leading to obstructive jaundice;

4. Tumor necrosis beside the main bile duct, malignant necrotic tissue shedding into the bile duct and bile duct bleeding, leading to the occurrence of obstructive jaundice;

Generally speaking, obstructive jaundice caused by the first two reasons will continue to deepen as the disease progresses, while cases caused by the latter two reasons are relatively rare.

Causes of hepatocellular jaundice include:

Liver tissue is extensively infiltrated by cancer or coexists with cirrhosis and chronic hepatitis, resulting in liver damage, which causes liver cells to have difficulty in bilirubin uptake, conjugation and excretion, resulting in a considerable amount of unconjugated bilirubin retention in the blood. At the same time, because the conjugated bilirubin cannot be normally discharged into the small bile ducts, it flows back into the hepatic lymph and blood, resulting in hepatocellular jaundice.