What is Liver Cancer?
Overview
Liver cancer is characterized by the growth or spread of abnormal or malignant cells in the liver tissue.
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most common form of liver cancer, and is responsible for about 90 percent of the primary liver cancers in adults.5,6 HCC is more common in men than women, but it affects both.2 Liver cancer is the sixth most common cancer in the world and the third leading cause of cancer-related deaths globally.7, 8
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Liver cells (hepatocytes) can become cancerous when there is a breakdown of normal cell processes.
- The cancerous liver cells grow out of control and develop into a tumor, called primary liver cancer or hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).
- The treatment of HCC is often complicated because many patients also have chronic liver disease.
- The cancerous liver cells grow out of control and develop into a tumor, called primary liver cancer or hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).
- Secondary liver cancer, or metastases of other cancers from other organs, also grows in the liver, but it is made up of cells that have traveled (metastasized) from another part of the body (such as colon, stomach, lung, etc.).
- Treatment for these metastases varies depending on the source of the cancer cells.
When a patient is diagnosed at an early stage (if the tumor is small in size and/or has not yet spread to other organs2,9) the cancer may be curable by resection, liver transplantation, or – in a small number of patients – a less invasive (percutaneous) treatment.1 Unfortunately, patients diagnosed at advanced stages or with progression after treatments have a poor prognosis.2,9
