How to detect liver cancer early and prevent it? Pay attention to these points in diet and hygiene

Early detection and early treatment, so how should we detect liver cancer early?

Early symptoms of liver cancer

Significant loss of appetite: abdominal distension, indigestion, and sometimes nausea and vomiting.

Liver pain: There may be persistent or intermittent pain in the liver area, which may sometimes be aggravated by changes in body position. It may radiate to the back or right shoulder.

Advanced liver cancer may cause sudden severe abdominal pain and peritoneal irritation, which may be caused by necrosis of the cancerous nodules or bleeding into the abdominal cavity. At this time, patients often go to the emergency room with symptoms of acute abdomen.

Jaundice, ascites: Itchy skin: It is a common symptom of liver cancer. About 1/3 of the cases have jaundice during the course of the disease. The cause of jaundice is that the tumor invades the main bile duct in the liver, and the metastatic cancer of the portal lymph nodes compresses the extrahepatic bile duct. Ascites is often caused by the patient's original liver cirrhosis, the invasion of cancer tissue into the vein to form a cancer thrombus, and the compression of the portal vein by cancer nodules. Ascites often accumulates very quickly and can be straw yellow or bloody. Itchy skin is a common symptom of patients with liver disease and liver cancer.

Bleeding: often manifested as nose bleeding and subcutaneous bleeding, mostly due to liver tissue damage and liver failure. Portal hypertension can cause esophageal and gastric varicose vein rupture and bleeding. When cancerous tissue invades the bile duct at the liver portal, it can cause bile duct bleeding.

Systemic exhaustion: severe fatigue, weight loss, progressive anemia and edema.

Hepatomegaly, splenomegaly, and fever: 90% of liver cancer patients have hepatomegaly. The enlarged liver is often hard and irregular in appearance, with nodules of varying sizes on the edges. Giant liver cancer can sometimes deform the liver, making it difficult to distinguish during palpation. Splenomegaly mostly occurs in patients with liver cancer and cirrhosis. Splenic metastasis is extremely rare. Fever is quite common in patients with liver cancer, which may be caused by ischemic necrosis of cancer tissue, absorption of necrotic products, and concurrent infection.

How to effectively prevent liver cancer

Pay attention to food hygiene

One of the causes of liver cancer is caused by viruses. To prevent hepatitis B virus, we must start with food hygiene and living habits. Wash your hands frequently and eat separately. It is worth noting that people with hepatitis cannot be chefs. Do not eat moldy or mushy food, as this type of food contains aflatoxin, which is carcinogenic. Eating moldy food can also easily cause liver cancer.

Do not drink polluted water

Drinking water should not be polluted. Drinking water with chemicals can easily cause cancer. Tap water is not necessarily clean. There are water tanks on the roofs of buildings with more than 5 floors. The water tanks should be cleaned by a dedicated person and it is best to perform secondary disinfection. The water tank body should also use chemicals that will not pollute water.

Quit smoking and drinking

Smoking and drinking are also bad for fatty liver. People think that drinking wine, beer, or a small amount of alcohol can promote blood circulation and remove blood stasis. In fact, this is not true. Alcohol is harmful to the human body. The gastric mucosa in the stomach protects the human body. Alcohol can digest the gastric mucosa, injure the cells of the stomach, and the toxic substances in the food are easily absorbed by the stomach. This can easily cause alcoholic hepatitis, reduce the immune function of the liver and the whole body, and damage the detoxification function of the liver. This is why people who drink have poor detoxification function and are prone to alcoholic cirrhosis, and some cirrhosis will turn into liver cancer.

In most cases, the symptoms of early liver cancer are not obvious. Therefore, the safest and most reliable way to detect early liver cancer is to have regular physical examinations, especially for people with a high risk of liver cancer, such as people with a family clustering of liver cancer, or patients with viral hepatitis.