What are the symptoms of liver cancer? Five major symptoms of liver cancer

As the number of patients with liver disease increases, the number of patients with liver cancer also increases. Liver cancer has now become our second most common cancer, second only to lung cancer. This cancer often manifests as weight loss, fatigue, and severe pain. Once you are sick, the chance of recovery is small, so you should pay attention to your life and stay away from liver disease and liver cancer.

Five major symptoms of liver cancer

1. Weight loss and fatigue

This symptom often occurs in the middle and late stages of liver cancer. It may be that tumor metabolites cause changes in the body's biochemical metabolism, reduced food intake, and cachexia in severe cases.

2. Fever

The fever caused by liver cancer is generally around 37.5'C~38℃, occasionally reaching above 39℃, with irregular fever pattern, often without chills. Fever is more common in the afternoon, and sometimes remittent high fever can also be seen. Fever can be caused by tumor necrosis or its metabolites.

3. Digestive tract symptoms

Common symptoms include decreased appetite, upper abdominal fullness after meals, or even nausea, vomiting or diarrhea.

4. Pain

This is a common symptom in patients with liver cancer. The pain is generally located in the liver area. The liver pain in patients with middle and late stage liver cancer is generally located in the right rib or under the xiphoid process. The nature of the pain is mostly persistent dull pain, dull pain or stabbing pain. A small number of patients may also have special manifestations of pain. Patients with liver cancer may also have referred pain in other parts of the body. The pain area of ​​some patients is located in the upper and middle abdomen, which is mostly caused by left lobe liver cancer, but is sometimes misdiagnosed as stomach disease and delayed treatment. Some patients may experience right shoulder pain, which is clinically more common in tumors in the right lobe close to the diaphragm, because it involves the diaphragm and causes referred pain in the right shoulder, which is easily misdiagnosed as periarthritis of the shoulder.

When liver cancer metastasizes to other parts of the body, symptoms of metastasis will appear. When it metastasizes to the lungs, chest pain may occur. When it metastasizes to the bones, bone pain may occur. Therefore, when liver cancer patients experience chest pain or bone pain, it should be considered that it is caused by liver cancer metastasis.

Clinically, a small number of patients may experience sudden severe pain in the liver area, which is mostly caused by rupture and bleeding of cancerous nodules located on the surface of the liver. If the patient is also accompanied by dizziness, blurred vision, palpitations, and low blood pressure, it mostly indicates that the cancerous nodule has ruptured and is complicated by severe internal bleeding. If this happens, emergency rescue should be carried out in time.

5. Other symptoms

Patients with hepatitis, cirrhosis or invasive tumor growth that causes liver decompensation may have a bleeding tendency, such as nosebleeds, gingival and subcutaneous ecchymosis, etc.; hypoproteinemia may also occur, leading to edema, ascites, abdominal distension, etc.