liver cancer survival rate
If you are worried about survival in people with liver tumors, read our article. Liver cancers come in many forms. The liver is one of the most vital organs in our body, which in addition to its important role in metabolism and detoxification, due to its important blood connections, can be used in a variety of tumors of the stomach, intestines, breast and lungs. Easily become malignant (metastasis of extrahepatic tumors), In addition to metastases, the liver tissue itself, liver vessels and bile ducts and gallbladder can also develop a variety of malignancies.
What is the survival rate of patients with liver cancer?
Does malignancy in the liver mean loss of life?
In the following, we will list the types of liver tumors and we will say how much there is survival and life expectancy in liver tumors.
Cancers and liver
If the liver cells in any part of the liver grow out of control so that these abnormal cells grow out of control, causing the destruction and dysfunction of normal cells, we will face a tumor or liver cancer.
Who is most at risk for liver cancer?
According to statistics, in general, the following people are more likely to develop primary liver tumors:
- Men
- People over fifty
- African races and races living in East Asia such as China and Japan
- Extreme and chronic alcohol users
- Patients with hepatitis C or chronic hepatitis B
- Patients with liver failure or cirrhosis of the liver
- Some toxins such as aflatoxins. This toxin is found in nuts such as peanuts, wheat and corn.
- Obesity
What are the types of primary liver cancers?
Doctors call a group of tumors that originate in the liver itself and do not originate from other tumors in other parts of the body, primary liver tumors.
The names of the primary tumors of the liver are:
- Hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC):
This is the most common type of primary liver cancer, which in the following we will talk more in the survival of people with HCC.
Other types include:
- Cancers and tumors of the bile ducts:
Bile duct cancer or intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma
Angiosarcoma
Hemangiosarcoma
Hemangioma
- Hepatoblastoma
- Hepatic adenomas
- And...
Of the above types, more than seventy-five percent of liver tumors are specific to HCC or hepatocellular carcinoma.
Hepatocellulose, or hepatocytes, make up the largest number of cells in liver tissue.
Doctors believe that this type of liver cancer is more likely to occur in people who have liver injuries and failures, such as chronic hepatitis C or B, have liver failure or cirrhosis, have suffered from liver failure due to excessive alcohol consumption, and…
For bile duct tumors or cholangiocarcinoma, know that ten to twenty percent of all liver cancers belong to this group.
Among vascular tumors of the liver, angiosarcoma is a very malignant tumor that is unfortunately often detected in very advanced stages. This liver cancer is very rare but grows and develops very quickly.
Doctors consider hepatoblastoma to be an extremely rare tumor of the liver. This tumor is specific to children, especially those under three.
What are the symptoms of liver cancer?
In the early stages of liver tumors, or in other words, the patient has no symptoms or the symptoms are not very specific, the symptoms are as follows:
- Nausea
- Vomit
- Fatigue
- Weakness
- Jaundice of the skin and eye cross
- Dark urine
- Light white stool (chalky stool)
- Vague abdominal pain
- Pain in the right and upper abdomen
- Sensitive to the touch on the right and upper abdomen
In addition to reviewing the history and clinical signs and symptoms, physicians use laboratory tests such as liver function tests and liver enzymes and bilirubin (a substance that is high in the blood that causes jaundice of the skin and cruciate ligament) and Imaging techniques will be used as appropriate.
CT scan, MRI and liver cell sampling are the most direct and accurate diagnostic methods.
Are liver tumors treatable?
The response to treatment, the type of treatment and the success of treatment in different types of liver tumors will be different.
Physician according to the type of liver cancer, the number of malignant parts in the liver, the size of the liver tumor and the place where the liver tumor is located, and also how much the liver has maintained its normal function, the presence or absence of cirrhosis and the presence or the absence of cancer spread from the liver to other parts of the body (presence or absence of liver tumor metastasis); choose the appropriate treatment.
Therefore, no treatment is used in all patients with liver cancer.
Liver cancer treatment methods
Among the treatment options in liver cancer, the following can be mentioned:
- Liver resection surgery, which doctors call hepatectomy
- Liver transplantation
- Tumor ablation
- Chemotherapy
- Radiotherapy
- Immunotherapy or target therapy is the use of drugs that only work on cancer cells.
And more sophisticated methods, such as obstruction of the arteries that supply the liver tumor, which doctors call embolization. Sometimes doctors use chemicals to cause these targeted obstructions, which they call chemoembolization.
But to what extent will these treatments survive in patients with liver cancer?
We will deal with this issue in the following.
How will survival be in patients with liver cancer?
According to doctors, survival in different types of liver cancers is different, and survival in liver tumors depends on the stage or stage in which the tumor is in terms of growth and development, etc.
What does this term mean when doctors use the term survival rate?
This criterion will allow you to find out what percentage of patients with a particular type and stage of liver cancer have survived for a certain period of time (this criterion is usually described over a five-year period).
Survival Rate cannot tell patients how long they will survive.
If doctors say that the five-year Survival Rate of Cancer X is, for example, 50 percent, it means that very large groups of patients have been studied and followed up, and it has been determined that fifty percent of all these people are alive five years after being diagnosed with Cancer X.
Now let's see what the term “5years relative survival rate” means
This criterion is obtained in comparison with people from the community who do not have cancer, which means that if you say that the five-year relative cancer survival rate is 30%, it means that 30% of patients with certain types and stages of X-ray, such as healthy people, will survive for five years.
Survival in a variety of liver tumors
First of all, we must say that liver tumors are divided into the following categories by doctors in terms of their spread
The tumor is limited to the liver and has not spread outside the liver
The tumor has grown out of the liver but has only spread to the lymph nodes or organs close to the liver.
The tumor has left the liver and has reached the lymph nodes and organs farther away from the liver.
Survival of liver cancer will be different in each of the above conditions.
- Five-year survival in liver cancers of bile duct tumors:
Localized tumor 34%
Regional tumor 12%
Distant tumor 3%
In total, there is a 20% chance of five-year survival in patients with bile duct tumors or cholangiocarcinomas.
- Survival in hepatocellular carcinoma or HCC:
Unfortunately, many HCCs are detected in the advanced stages.
In recent decades, the number of patients with this type of cancer has increased
It is said that the median survival of patients with HCC will unfortunately be six to twenty months
In developed countries, the two-year survival of HCC will be less than fifty percent and the five-year survival will be only ten percent.
The five-year survival of this cancer will be:
In HCC localized tumor 32/6%
In HCC regional tumor 10/8%
In HCC distant tumor 2/4%
And in total, the five-year survival in patients with HCC will be 4/18%
- Survival in liver angiosarcoma:
Survival is said to be only twenty-four percent in the twelve months after the diagnosis of liver angiosarcoma.
Unfortunately, 100% of people with liver angiosarcoma will not be alive after 24 months of diagnosis.
In another type of vascular tumor of the liver, called hemangiodandlioma, the 12-month survival will be 87%.
- Survival in hepatoblastoma:
Usually, children under the age of three make up the largest group of people with this extremely rare liver tumor.
It is said that if hepatoblastoma is diagnosed in the early stages, chemotherapy is given, the liver is completely removed and the liver is transplanted, survival will be over eighty percent.