The most common type of malignant liver cancer is called hepatocellular carcinoma, or HCC for short.
What is the survival rate in HCC?
Hepatocellular carcinoma is the most common malignant liver cancer.
What is the life expectancy of people with hepatocellular carcinoma or liver cell tumor?
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Who is at risk for HCC?
Doctors believe that the biggest risk factors for HCC are:
- Chronic hepatitis B
- Chronic hepatitis C
- Chronic alcohol consumption
- Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease
Special races such as East Asian races, are more susceptible to HCC.
Apart from these basic and common factors, the following factors can also increase the risk of liver cell malignancy:
Underlying liver diseases such as:
- Hemochromatosis
- Wilson’s disease
- Alpha 1 antitrypsin deficiency
- Autoimmune hepatitis
- Primary biliary cirrhosis
Hcc symptoms
Many of the following symptoms may have similarities and overlaps with many gastrointestinal disorders that are not very serious, but if you see a number of symptoms, especially in yourself or your loved ones, you should be checked by a doctor:
- Abdominal pain
- Upper and right abdominal pain
- Fatigue
- Weakness
- Yellowing of the skin and Sclera of the eye which is called jaundice
- Swelling of the abdomen called ascites
- edema and swelling of the legs
- Severe and unexplained weight loss
- Nausea (Doctors consider nausea or feeling of queasiness to be one of the most common clinical manifestations of hcc)
- After swelling, loss of appetite will be an early sign of liver cancer.
- Coagulation disorders such as bruising without trauma or with very little pressure
- Vomit
- There is chalky stool
- and in opposite
- Dark urine
Hepatocellular carcinoma is a very progressive and aggressive malignancy, HCC is considered the third leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide.
Doctors say that the stage of the tumor and also the underlying disease and the general condition of the person with HCC are very influential on the HCC treatment and management program.
HCC is the most common type of primary liver tumor and most often affects people with chronic hepatitis and liver cirrhosis.
Physicians according to the degree of advanced HCC and considering the underlying conditions of the patient use one or a combination of what treatment modalities?
- surgery
- Liver transplantation
- Destroying cancer cells with heat or cold
- Chemotherapy
- Radiotherapy
- Targeted drug therapy
- Immunotherapies
It is said that the growth and development of HCC is slow in the early stages. If the tumor is detected in these stages, the treatment will be very successful and the survival will be high.
Unfortunately, most HCCs are detected and diagnosed in advanced stages. In recent decades, the incidence and prevalence of hepatocellular carcinoma of the liver has increased significantly.
Reliable statistics provided by reputable medical centers say that these HCCs discovered in the advanced stages from the time of diagnosis will have a median survival of six to twenty months.
This cancer has high mortality in advanced stages and stages, even in advanced countries, and in the presence of modern technology and drugs, survival in high stages is limited.
The two-year survival is less than 50 percent, meaning that in advanced HCC cases, less than 50 percent of patients survive up to two years after diagnosis.
And according to reliable statistics, the five-year survival was about ten percent, meaning that patients with advanced HCC stages were about ten percent more likely to survive five years after being diagnosed with cancer.
About fifty-seven percent of people with HCC die from a direct result of cancer progression, and another forty-three percent die from complications such as cirrhosis, internal bleeding, especially gastrointestinal bleeding, sepsis, or kidney failure.
Studies show that an HCC cancer mass needs 30 to 600 days to double.
It is said that the time required to double a HCC mass with a diameter of five centimeters is one hundred and twelve to two hundred and four days.
Survival and life expectancy in patients with hcc
In end stage patients: it is three to four months. In these people, treatments are done only to reduce the painful symptoms.
The outlook for patients with HCC is poor, it is said that in general, patients with HCC survival will be as follows:
5year relative survival rate:
- In localized tumor 6.32%
- In regional tumors 8/10%
- In distant tumors: 4.2%
A localized tumor is a tumor that is limited to only a part of the liver.
A regional tumor is a tumor that affects only the liver and lymph nodes and organs very close to the liver.
Distant tumors are tumors of the liver with metastases and involvement of distant tissues, organs, and lymph nodes.