How to diagnose liver cancer most effectively? Six symptoms help diagnose liver cancer

How is liver cancer diagnosed? According to liver disease experts, if you have the following symptoms, you may have liver cancer and should go to the hospital for a comprehensive examination:

1. Pain in the liver area: The most common type is intermittent, persistent dull pain or bloating. The pain is caused by the rapid growth of the cancer, which tightens the liver capsule and causes the tumor to invade the diaphragm. The pain may radiate to the right shoulder or right back. A tumor growing to the right back may cause right waist pain. Sudden onset of severe abdominal pain and peritoneal irritation signs indicates bleeding under the capsule of the cancer nodule or rupture into the abdominal cavity.

2. Gastrointestinal symptoms: decreased appetite, indigestion, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea are easily overlooked due to their lack of specificity.

3. Fatigue, weight loss, and general weakness. A small number of patients may develop cachexia in the late stages.

4. Fever: Generally, the temperature is low and reaches above 39°C, which is continuous fever or low fever in the afternoon or high fever of remittent type. Fever is related to the absorption of necrotic products of tumor. Compression or invasion of bile duct by tumor may cause biliary infection.

5. Symptoms of metastasis: There are corresponding symptoms at the place where the tumor metastasizes, which sometimes become the first symptoms of liver cancer. For example, metastasis to the lungs can cause coughing and hemoptysis; pleural metastasis can cause chest pain and bloody pleural effusion; embolism of the pulmonary artery or branches can cause pulmonary infarction, which can cause sudden severe dyspnea and chest pain; and embolism of the inferior vena cava can cause severe edema of the lower limbs and even a drop in blood pressure.

6. Other systemic symptoms: Endocrine or metabolic syndromes caused by abnormal metabolism of the tumor itself or the various effects of cancer tissue on the body are called paraneoplastic syndromes, which sometimes precede the symptoms of liver cancer itself.