What are the early symptoms of liver cancer? What are the results of ultrasound imaging examination of liver cancer?

What are the early symptoms of liver cancer?

Today I will teach you how to use your hands and eyes to identify cancer. You can use your eyes to detect early symptoms of liver cancer. In fact, we can also use our hands to detect signs of liver cancer.

The first thing is to find the exact location of the liver: the liver is located in the upper right part of the abdomen. In fact, the liver is large in size and extends from the right hypochondrium to the middle of the upper abdomen. Under normal circumstances, the liver is blocked by the ribs and we cannot touch it directly. However, the upper part of the liver is close to the diaphragm, so when you take a deep breath, the liver will be pushed down by the diaphragm and can be touched under the ribs.

Here we recommend that you lie flat, bend your legs slightly, take a deep breath, and touch the lower edge of your right ribs with your hands. If you can only touch the ribs, it means that there is no risk of serious liver cancer; if you can clearly touch the liver and have obvious pain, it means that it is a more serious liver cancer. Clinical studies have shown that about 1/3 of liver cancer patients can feel a mass in the liver area.

In addition to the mass felt in the liver area, there is another symptom that is easily overlooked and indicates the presence of liver cancer, which is right shoulder pain. If the liver cancer located below the diaphragm on the right surface of the liver invades the right diaphragm, it will cause this symptom.

In addition, the pain of the hepatobiliary capsule itself can radiate to the right shoulder. This is because the pain caused by visceral lesions is not as accurate as the pain caused by the skin on the surface of the body. The pain site of the skin on the surface of the body is often the site of skin damage, while visceral lesions often cause reflex pain or referred pain, and the site of pain is not necessarily the site of the lesion.

Vitamin K: an anti-liver cancer expert

Vitamin K, also known as coagulation vitamin, is a fat-soluble vitamin. In daily life, people refer to vitamin K mainly as vitamin K1, vitamin K2, and vitamin K3. The most common vitamin K1 is synthesized by plants and vitamin K2 is synthesized by microorganisms. In recent years, reports have been made at home and abroad that vitamin K has a good anti-tumor effect. Medical researchers have used vitamin K as an anti-tumor adjuvant drug in clinical practice, and generally achieved good results.

There are two main sources of vitamin K in our body. The first is self-synthesis and the second is intake through diet. According to surveys, the older you are, the lower your vitamin K intake is. Currently, the average vitamin K intake of middle-aged and elderly people in my country is far lower than the recommended intake in the "Dietary Nutrient Reference Intake for Chinese Residents".

Therefore, the elderly should try to take more vitamin K in their food. Vitamin K is commonly found in green plants, but there is actually a lot of it in animal foods.

Animal food: beef liver, lean beef, meat, eggs, milk, cheese, yogurt (lactic acid bacteria products), etc.

Plant foods: pumpkin, tomatoes, cabbage, green onions, natto, broccoli, celery, cauliflower, spinach, peanuts, coriander, lettuce, wheat, corn, potatoes, cowpeas, green tea, etc.

What are the results of ultrasound imaging for liver cancer?

(I) Encapsulation

Liver cancer nodules with a diameter of less than 3 cm often have intact capsules. The capsule is composed of fibrous tissue, and its acoustic impedance is lower than that of the surrounding liver tissue and cancer.

The lesions are uniformly high, thus forming an interface reflection. On the two-dimensional sonogram, a thin low-echo membrane can be shown surrounding the entire cancerous nodule. The thickness of the capsule is estimated to be &0.5mm. On the sonogram, the capsule is relatively smooth and uniform, with a regular shape, and is round or oval. This reflects the characteristics of the expansive growth of small liver cancer. However, the capsule on the sonogram is always interrupted on both sides of the nodule, which is the echo loss effect of the large interface. When the liver cancer is very large, its capsule is generally unclear. However, there are also cases where the capsule is still very intact when the diameter of the cancer nodule is greater than 5cm. At this time, the inner echo is often accompanied by acoustic halo.

(II) Internal Echo

The echoes inside cancerous nodules vary in height and tend to be variable. Except for uniformly low-echo nodules, the echoes of other cancerous nodules are unevenly distributed. The detection rate of liver cancer nodules with an echo height of 1 cm is 33% to 37%.

The low categories are as follows:

1. Hypoechoic nodules

2. Hyperechoic nodules

3. Mixed nodules

4. Echoic nodules

5. Relationship between nodule echogenicity and blood supply

3. Color blood flow of cancer nodules

Liver cancer nodules and their surroundings are rich in blood supply, so various blood flow information can be obtained. Second harmonic acoustic contrast imaging color Doppler ultrasound has high sensitivity in detecting tissue blood flow and can accurately reflect the blood supply of liver cancer. Color Doppler ultrasound can identify the inflow vessels, outflow vessels and intratumoral vessels of liver cancer nodules. The inflow vessels can be the hepatic artery or the portal vein. The outflow vessels can be the hepatic vein or the portal vein. The intratumoral vessels appear as tree-trunk-shaped, colorful dot-shaped or color-inlaid "clustered" plaques, which can be hepatic artery, portal vein or hepatic vein blood flow in spectral Doppler analysis. The blood flow around the cancer nodule can appear as a full circle or arc-shaped surround, and spectral Doppler can be used to measure whether it is continuous portal blood flow or pulsating arterial blood flow.

(IV) Cancer Thrombus

Patients with liver cancer are prone to cancer thrombi, which may appear in the portal vein system, hepatic vein system or biliary system.

1. Tumor thrombus in the hepatic veins Tumor infiltration in the hepatic veins is one of the characteristic lesions of liver cancer, and early lesions are no exception. Tumor thrombus can spread from small hepatic veins to larger veins, or block the outflow tract due to venous tumor thrombus, and spread in reverse to small portal veins, larger portal veins or the main trunk of the portal vein.

2. Portal vein cancer thrombus In pathological observation, almost all patients with hepatic vein cancer thrombus have portal vein involvement. In cases of liver cancer combined with cirrhosis, the cirrhosis leads to retrograde development of cancer thrombus due to obstruction of the output vein. Portal vein cancer thrombus may also occur if the tumor directly invades the portal vein.

3. Cancer in the bile duct system The bile duct system is an outflow duct and a channel for bile excretion. If the tumor breaks off or invades the small hepatic duct, it can flow downstream to form a tumor thrombus in the common hepatic duct or common bile duct. The tumor thrombus in the bile duct can also invade directly from the adjacent liver cancer or the portal vein. The bile duct tumor thrombus is often accompanied by symptoms such as persistent jaundice and obvious pain.

(V) Lymph node metastasis

1. Ultrasound images of lymph node metastasis in the first hepatic portal area show round or oval hypoechoic foci of 0.5-2 cm in size around the gallbladder neck, common bile duct, and portal vein, either single or multiple. Multiple enlarged lymph nodes may cause compression of the common bile duct and jaundice.

2. Secondary portal lymph node metastasis: The lymphatic vessels of the liver near the head and diaphragm converge to the peripheral lymph nodes where the three hepatic veins of the inferior vena cava flow into the second portal. Because of the deep location, it is often difficult to detect enlarged lymph nodes.

3. Retroperitoneal lymph node metastasis Lymph node metastasis around the abdominal aorta, inferior vena cava and pancreas appears as round or oval hypoechoic foci, single or multiple.