What harm does liver cancer bring? 3 examination methods to diagnose liver cancer

What are the hazards of liver cancer? Liver cancer not only has adverse effects on the liver, but may also affect the health of other parts of the body. This is because liver cancer has the possibility of metastasis. If you want to reduce the harm of liver cancer, you must conduct liver cancer examinations in a timely manner so that it can be detected and treated early.

Five major dangers of liver cancer

Decreased resistance: Liver cancer can cause a series of digestive system symptoms in patients, including anorexia, indigestion, weight loss, decreased physical fitness, decreased resistance and immunity, and other serious problems. This can easily lead to various forms of infection in patients, making their treatment more troublesome.

Upper gastrointestinal bleeding: accounts for 15% of the causes of death from primary liver cancer. Vomiting blood or black stools may occur due to portal hypertension or portal vein or hepatic vein cancer thrombosis caused by liver cirrhosis, leading to rupture of esophageal varicose veins or gastric fundus varicose veins. It may also cause extensive bleeding due to gastrointestinal mucosal erosion and ulcer coagulation function.

Acute abdomen: Rupture of cancerous nodules usually causes pain in the liver area. During physical examination, there is obvious tenderness in the liver area, which is a symptom of liver capsule irritation. After the rupture of cancerous nodules, some patients experience acute abdominal pain accompanied by peritoneal irritation symptoms, which can be easily misdiagnosed as acute peritonitis. Abdominal pain caused by rupture of cancerous nodules is usually accompanied by a drop in blood pressure or even shock, which is different from general acute peritonitis.

Bleeding tendency: Liver cancer can also cause patients to show a more obvious bleeding tendency. Patients will have problems such as bleeding gums and subcutaneous ecchymosis. In more serious cases, it can also lead to gastrointestinal bleeding. Gastrointestinal bleeding is a very important cause of death in liver cancer patients.

Secondary infection: The emergence of late-stage complications of liver cancer is due to long-term consumption, low resistance, and a decrease in white blood cells after radiotherapy or chemotherapy, which makes it easy to develop various infections such as pneumonia, sepsis, intestinal infection, fungal infection, etc.

So, what tests can be done to diagnose liver cancer?

3 ways to check for liver cancer

Ultrasound examination: Ultrasound examination is a non-invasive examination that has no adverse effects on human tissue. It is simple to operate, intuitive and accurate, low-cost, convenient and non-invasive, and widely popular. It can be used for the screening of liver cancer and follow-up after treatment.

Blood test: Blood test is used to measure tumor markers. Tumor markers are a marker that measures whether the body organs and tissues release cancer cells into the blood. It is a designated method for checking various cancers.

CT: CT has become an important routine method for diagnosing liver cancer. Abdominal enhanced CT scans can clearly show the size, number, shape, location, boundary, tumor blood supply, and relationship with the intrahepatic ducts of liver cancer. It is important for further clarifying the diagnosis, distinguishing from other benign liver lesions, and clarifying the staging and grading of liver cancer, which is important for guiding treatment and judging prognosis. Image analysis software can also be used to reconstruct the various ducts in the liver, accurately determine the course of blood vessels in each liver segment, the relationship between tumors and blood vessels, simulate surgical resection planes, and calculate the volume of pre-resected tumors and the remaining liver volume, greatly improving surgical safety.

Liver cancer has many harmful effects, so it is important to get checked in time.