Getting ill is one of the things that mark a change in someone’s life. You are about to embark on a journey where you will have to be strong and find a way to deal with all the consequences that come with a certain illness. In this day and age, one of the most dangerous illnesses you can come across is cancer.
As we all know, cancer is an illness that can appear in any part of the human body. Also, it is complex to solve the situation by implementing the right treatment. The reason is quite simple, it is possible that the illness can come back, and the whole procedure needs to be conducted once again, which is never a pleasant experience.
One of the most challenging forms of cancer is liver cancer. If you want to learn more about this condition and liver cancer forum, you can find here all the important information you need to understand it properly. Now, we want to talk about some tests and procedures that can help with diagnosing this disease and some solution on how to cure it.
What is Liver Cancer?
Liver cancer falls under the category of life-threatening illnesses. At the same time, we can see that this one is among the fastest-grown cancer types in the United States and Europe. The illness is categorized into two main groups. We are talking about primary and secondary. The primary one starts spreading in the liver, and the secondary is spreading in other parts of the body.
As is the case with a lot of cancers out there, the goal of doctors is to treat the disease while it is at an early stage. Different from many other conditions that fall in the same category, medical scientists have a proper understanding of all the risks of developing this illness. Therefore, it is easier to prevent it from occurring than to treat it while it has developed already.
As a result of that, the ways to prevent it from happening are much easier than actually treating the illness itself. Of course, this doesn’t mean that going for diagnostic treatments is not something that should be conducted from time to time, especially if a person is exposed to the threats that can cause them to exist.
How to Diagnose it?
Diagnosing liver cancer is a complex procedure and it is not something that could be done just one way. That’s why there are three main ways you can do this. First, we are talking about conducting blood tests. The reason why these are important is that they might reveal some function abnormalities regarding the liver.
The next test we want to point out is imaging tests. As you probably know there are many different sorts of imaging tests, but there are three of those we would consider important for this particular case. We are talking about CT, MRI, and ultrasound. All three of them are accurate and they can provide you with exact results quite shortly.
The most severe test out of all three of them is to remove a sample of the liver for testing. As you can imagine, this is not a simple process, and it takes some complex methods before a patient can go through this process. The sample is then put under a high number of tests to see whether there is something wrong with the organ or not.
What are the Potential Treatments?
Now, we want to take a look at a couple of treatments for liver cancer.
Intra-Arterial Therapy
One of the things to be understood is that tumors and cancers get their blood supply from the artery that supplies the organ with blood. Cancer acts like a parasite that feeds off the blood of the patient. Therefore, intra-arterial therapy is a way to influence cancer, and that way prevents it from growing.
In this therapy, chemoembolization beads are going through the arteries and provide the liver with medication that will help it sustain all the problems the tumor can cause. At the same time, these beads do block blood flow to the tumor as well, which helps prevent it from growing in the future.
Liver Tumor Ablation
Ablation therapies are another way to kill off the liver tumor without actually conducting the procedure to remove it completely. During this therapy, it is possible to have a negative influence on the tumor by exposing it to hot energy. We are talking about an approach that’s not invasive at all, and it works best for tumors that are not that developed yet.
When it comes down to that influence, we are talking about microwave ablation. Naturally, this is a method that can be used in a situation when it is too dangerous for the medical staff to remove the tumor physically. As you can see, the best way to think about this approach is a minimalistic one that can provide you with the highest possible results.
Liver Transplantation
The final approach we want to talk about is the most severe one, liver transplantation. Of course, since we are talking about the complete removal of the damaged tissue, this is the most effective one by far. However, it needs to be said that this can be done solely in cases when there’s a way to transplant the liver from another person.
At the same time, it is more than clear that not all the patients out there are candidates for transplantation. What does this mean? Well, it means that every patient should go through a high number of tests before doctors can establish whether a certain person can receive someone else’s liver or not.
In Conclusion
As you can see, liver cancer is one of the most complex conditions to treat, and it is not always easy to find a perfect solution. Here, we’ve talked about diagnosing liver cancer and a couple of treatments that can help with curing it completely. We are certain you will find this insight to be helpful in the future.
