What tests do liver cancer patients need to do? What tests do liver cancer patients need to do to confirm the diagnosis?

Early detection and early treatment, and timely going to the hospital for examination when feeling unwell are important prerequisites for curing liver cancer. What are the examination items that need to be done in the hospital?

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.

What tests do liver cancer patients need to do?

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.

Routine blood test: including the number of red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets, and the hemoglobin content in red blood cells. Routine blood test is an important means to detect the patient's overall physical condition and can reflect the patient's physical condition.

X-ray angiography: used to examine the specific location of liver cancer. The angiography can show cancer nodules with a diameter of more than 1 cm, with a positive rate of 87%.