What are the symptoms of advanced liver cancer? Comprehensive knowledge on liver cancer prevention and treatment

Liver cancer, a disease that is hated by both humans and gods, savagely, cruelly and wantonly devours the lives of more than hundreds of thousands of people every year. The extreme psychological panic, high medical costs for treating liver cancer and enormous physical and mental pain are overwhelming for liver cancer patients and their families!

The symptoms of liver cancer are not obvious in the early stage, and you may not feel anything for a long time after the disease. When the disease develops to a certain extent, it will gradually produce some symptoms such as pain in the liver area, loss of appetite, fatigue, and weight loss. In the late stage, there will be jaundice, ascites, vomiting blood, coma and other symptoms.

A huge swelling can often be felt in the upper abdomen of liver cancer patients, but this is already in the middle or late stages of the disease and has even metastasized to the lungs and other parts of the body.

The common clinical staging standard for gallbladder cancer in my country is: Early stage refers to patients who have no symptoms and signs of liver cancer (such as palpable lumps, etc.). Because there are no manifestations, it is also called the "subclinical stage". Late stage refers to cases with jaundice, ascites or extrahepatic metastasis. The stage between early and late stages is called mid-stage. Simply put, early liver cancer has no symptoms, and patients with symptoms are no longer early liver cancer.

There are no symptoms in the early stages of liver cancer, and patients will not take the initiative to go to the hospital for treatment, which makes early diagnosis difficult. Although symptoms may occur after the disease progresses, common symptoms are liver pain and loss of appetite, which are similar to chronic hepatitis and cirrhosis. Moreover, liver cancer mostly occurs on the basis of chronic hepatitis and cirrhosis, so it is difficult to diagnose liver cancer based on these symptoms. Even if a lump is felt or there is jaundice or ascites, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish it from colon cancer and pancreatic cancer. Therefore, the diagnosis of liver cancer must rely on various special examinations.

Liver cancer is the most serious type of liver disease. The harm of liver cancer to the human body is immeasurable. However, patients with early liver cancer have no obvious discomfort symptoms. Over time, liver cancer will develop into the late stage, causing serious consequences. Some patients even sleep well and eat well without feeling anything. It is not until the physical examination that the liver cancer is found in the late stage! It can be seen that the early prevention of liver cancer cannot be ignored!

In fact, the early symptoms of many tumors, including liver cancer, are vague or even absent. Once discovered, it is often in the late stage, and it is difficult to take radical treatment at this time. Experts remind citizens: liver cancer is particularly prone to "family members". If a blood relative is sick, it is best to be vigilant and conduct regular screening. People with a history of hepatitis B, a family history of liver cancer, drinking, and eating pickled foods in daily life are all susceptible to liver cancer. It is best for such people to have a B-ultrasound examination every six months to detect the disease in time.

A 70-year-old man with terminal liver cancer has no symptoms:

Mr. Cai, who is in his seventies, has always felt that he enjoys eating and is in good health. As a result, even after more than ten years of retirement, he has never participated in the free physical examination organized by his unit.

Some time ago, Mr. Cai frequently got up at night to urinate, and suspected that he had prostatitis, so he went to the hospital for treatment. The results of the examination were shocking: Mr. Cai also suffered from high blood pressure, diabetes, kidney cysts, prostatitis, and liver cancer. Even more unfortunately, the liver tumor had invaded the portal vein, and the liver cancer had developed to the late stage.

After learning the test results, Mr. Cai and his family were very confused. He had no pain in the liver area, no jaundice, no ascites, and a strong appetite. How could he be diagnosed with advanced liver cancer? Why didn't he show any signs before?

In fact, in reality, many tumors lack typical symptoms in the early stages, and even have no symptoms in the late stages. By the time they are diagnosed, they have often lost their therapeutic significance. Judging whether a tumor has entered the late stage does not depend on whether the patient has symptoms, but on factors such as liver function, tumor size, whether it has invaded blood vessels, and whether metastasis has occurred.

For ordinary people, under normal circumstances, as long as there is 30% of the liver, it is enough to maintain the normal functioning of the human body. Although the tumor has invaded the liver and even the blood vessels, as long as 30% of the liver is not affected, there will be no symptoms. This does not mean that the patient can sit back and relax, because the tumor grows very fast. When the tumor cells invade the liver, symptoms such as jaundice and ascites will appear, and by then the treatment will be difficult to be effective.

Secondly, if the patient's tumor happens to grow in the center of the liver, and the liver volume has not increased significantly, the tension of the liver capsule is not high, and the surrounding nerves are not affected, there may be no pain. If the cancer thrombus has not invaded the portal vein, or has invaded the portal vein but has not completely blocked it, there will be no ascites.

Liver cancer has spread all over the world. Early medical examination can prevent it.

The liver is a silent organ. It is an organ in the human body that does not feel obvious pain. At the same time, its compensatory ability is also very strong, so it is not easy to find a tumor. There are no obvious symptoms. If you do not go for a physical examination, it is difficult to find. Usually, about 70% of small liver cancers less than 5 cm are asymptomatic. Once symptoms appear, when liver cancer patients feel abdominal pain, fatigue, weight loss, abdominal distension and jaundice, they go for a check-up. Basically, they are in the late stage and may die in 2-3 months. Therefore, clinicians often say that liver cancer "either dies in silence or breaks out in silence."

Studies have shown that people with hepatitis B surface antigen in their blood are 10-50 times more likely to develop liver cancer than those without hepatitis B surface antigen. Clinically, about 90% of liver cancer patients go through the three steps of death: chronic hepatitis, cirrhosis, and liver cancer (currently, 90% of patients are diagnosed with hepatitis B).

The latest cancer monitoring data in Guangzhou shows that the incidence of liver cancer ranks third and the mortality rate ranks second. Liver cancer is known as the "king of cancer" in China. It is rarely detected in the early stage and is highly malignant, so the mortality rate often ranks second. The age of onset is concentrated between 45 and 55 years old, and the number of male patients is three times that of female patients. According to the "Survey on High-risk Factors for Liver Cancer in Guangzhou Community Population", hepatitis virus, aflatoxin pollution, alcoholism, drinking water pollution and liver fluke infection are the five major high-risk factors for liver cancer.

The southeastern coastal areas of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan and other places have a high incidence of liver cancer in my country. The reason may be related to the high infection rate of hepatitis B virus and hepatitis C virus in these areas. After the hepatitis B virus enters the human body, it causes damage and necrosis of liver cells. As for the liver itself, cirrhosis and liver cancer are basically the inevitable result of the development of hepatitis B.

In fact, if you pay attention to physical examinations and go to the hospital for screening regularly (B-ultrasound, blood tests, alpha-fetoprotein tests, etc.), you can detect liver cancer early. Liver cancers smaller than 5 cm can be directly removed by surgery, and the cost of surgery is usually less than 50,000 yuan, and the 5-year survival rate can reach 50%. However, if it is advanced liver cancer, the 5-year survival rate is only 5%!

If liver cancer develops to the late stage, it will be more difficult to treat. Therefore, early diagnosis and treatment of liver cancer are very important. In daily life, we should pay attention to taking measures to prevent liver cancer, especially regular physical examinations, to detect potential liver cancer in time to avoid tragedy.