What are the efficacy indicators for liver cancer? Can primary liver tumors be cured?

What are the efficacy indicators for liver cancer?

Generally, all liver cancer patients are concerned about whether they can be cured, or what kind of effect they can achieve after surgery or drug treatment. There are two indicators for judging the efficacy of liver cancer treatment, namely liver cancer survival index and tumor response index.

Liver cancer survival indicators

Survival indicators included overall survival and disease-free survival.

The overall survival rate refers to the length of time a patient survives or the percentage of patients who survive within a specific period of time. Regardless of whether the patient has a tumor or not, as long as he or she is alive, the survival period or survival rate is calculated.

The disease-free survival rate refers to the survival rate of liver cancer patients in a tumor-free state after surgical resection or in a specific period of time.

Tumor response markers

Tumor response indicators are mainly used to evaluate the efficacy of non-surgical resection methods. For example, after hepatic artery embolization chemotherapy, whether the tumor shrinks or disappears completely is called complete remission. If the maximum diameter of the tumor shrinks by more than 30%, it is called partial remission. If the maximum diameter of the tumor shrinks by no more than 30% and increases by no more than 20%, it is called stable. If it increases by more than 20% or new lesions appear, it is called disease progression.

As for the treatment effect of liver cancer, it is currently believed that the most important efficacy indicator is the patient's overall survival, and whether the tumor shrinks is a secondary indicator. This is because even if the patient's tumor does not shrink, if it is in a stable state, the patient may still survive for a long time, and such treatment is still effective; on the contrary, even if the tumor is shrunk after some intense anti-tumor treatment, but soon the tumor metastasizes to multiple parts of the body or the toxic reaction of the treatment causes the function of important organs to fail, then such treatment is ineffective and undesirable.

Can primary liver tumors be cured?

Many patients are concerned about whether primary liver tumors can be cured. This is difficult to answer because tumors are difficult to cure. In addition, they are not easy to detect in the early stages, so the patient's general survival time is very short. Therefore, the question of whether primary liver tumors can be cured depends on the time of discovery and treatment, as well as the patient's physical function.

It is conservatively estimated that it takes about 2 years from the beginning of liver tumor cell settlement and division to the death of liver tumor, which means that the untreated liver tumor patient can live for 2 years from the beginning of liver tumor to death. Generally speaking, it takes only about 6 months from the onset of liver tumor symptoms to death. This is because when liver tumor symptoms appear, most of them are in the middle and late stages. At this time, the treatment effect will be in the early stage of liver cancer and obvious.

With the improvement of medical standards and the promotion of physical examinations, the chance of early detection of liver tumors has greatly increased. If liver tumor patients can be detected and treated in time at an early stage, the five-year survival rate will be greatly improved, and they can have a higher quality of life. Some can even survive with tumors, and some can live for decades.

Can primary liver tumors be cured? This depends not only on the timing of treatment, but also on the treatment method. Liver tumor surgery is still the preferred method for eradicating liver tumors, and the smaller the tumor, the higher the five-year survival rate.

In short, whether primary liver tumors can be cured is closely related to whether liver tumors can be detected and treated early. Even if patients with liver tumors in the middle and late stages undergo active and effective treatment, their pain can be greatly reduced, their quality of life can be improved, and their lives can be prolonged. Therefore, whether primary liver tumors can be cured focuses more on how much we value liver tumors.

We must actively treat liver tumors and maintain an optimistic attitude so that we can gain more survival time.