the cancer of the liver, which is the people at the risk to develop a cancer of the liver, the diagnosis and the treatment of the disease

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The cancer of the liver is one of most fatal
The cancer of the liver is generally the result of a complication of a cirrhosis or of chronic hepatitis B or C. It can also it to act of a metastasis of another cancer. The point on this rather particular cancer.

The liver is a vital body
He plays an important role in the metabolism of proteins, the lipids, glucids and the hormones. Grace to the bile which the liver manufactures, it allows the digestion of greases and elimination of the bilirubine (product breakdown of haemoglobin); it also intervenes in the storage of glucose and takes part in lexcretion of toxins and with elimination of certain drugs.

Who are the people at the risk to more develop a cancer of the liver?
People reached of a cirrhosis, that this one is related to an excessive consumption d’ alcohol or with the viruses of hepatitises B and C. Indeed, the cancer of the liver almost always develops on a liver reached of a chronic disease, generally a cirrhosis or chronic hepatitis. Cancer also more often touches the man, and the elderly of more than 50-55 years.

It should be noted that the frequency of the cancer of the liver is in increase since a score of years, probably because of an increase in consumption of alcohol, of the contamination by the viruses of hepatitises B and C, and of the best dealt with of the cirrhoses ( lengthening of the life expectancy of the patients leaves more time to the cirrhosis to become complicated in cancer of the liver).

Do there exist specific symptoms of the cancer of the liver?
A cancer of the liver can appear by abdominal pains, fever, a jaundice, tiredness, vomiting, a slimming, a ascite (accumulation of liquid in the abdominal cavity), etc But in the majority of the cases, it is fortuitously discovered with occasion of an echography. It can also be diagnosed within the framework of the monitoring of a cirrhosis or of another cancer. It should be noted that the liver can be the seat of métastases of another cancer (centre, colon, ovary…): more of a third of all cancers metastasis with the liver.

How the diagnosis is carried out; of a cancer of the liver?

The diagnosis rests primarily on medical imagery (abdominal echography, IRM and/or scanner), showing the presence of lesions. We can also sometimes highlight an increase in the blood concentration of alpha-fetoprotein, a tumoral marker (nonsystematic). And finally, if necessary, a biopsy can definitively confirm the of presence; a cancer of the liver.

Which are the treatments?

They depend especially on the size of the tumour. If it is small, hepatic transplantation can be considered, but this type of assumption of responsibility is exceptional and addresses it on young subjects. We resorts more usually to the surgery by ablation of the tumour. In other alternative techniques can be proposed, like the radio frequency (destruction of the tumour by heat), the alcoholization (injection of alcohol directly in the tumour) or the chimio-embolisation (drugs introduced into the arteries of the liver). The chemotherapy, largely employed for the other types of cancers, is far from effective in the case of the cancer of the liver and often badly tolerated.