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What is Secondary cancer in the liver?
The secondary cancer of the liver is a tumor bound to the fixing to the level of the liver of cancerous cells descended of another localization:Â one speaks then of hepatic metastases.
[Secondary cancer in the liver]Â Reasons and factors of risk
The secondary cancer of the liver is the most frequent reason of shrewd tumor of the liver. It is mainly about metastases of digestive tumors (colon cancer, of the stomach or the pancreas) or more rarely of metastases of cancer of the lung, the kidneys, the ovaries or the breast.
[Secondary cancer in the liver]Â The signs of the illness
The patient can present some pains in look of the liver, a fever, a change of the general state (thinning, loss of the appetite, fatigue) or an ictère (yellow coloration of skin).
[Secondary cancer in the liver]Â The consultation
The attentive exam of the abdomen recovers a liver of volume increased (hépatomégalie), hard with an irregular surface, sometimes sensitive or painful.
The physician always tries to search for a secondary cancer of the liver in the setting of the balance of extension of another cancer. He/it also arrives that the secondary cancer of the liver is detected before the cancer of origin is identified.
[Secondary cancer in the liver]Â Exams and complementary analyses
The biologic exams recover non specific elements:Â anemia (reduction of the hemoglobin rate in blood), increase of the number of white globules in blood, modification of the blood rate of the enzymes manufactured by the liver (increase of the gamma GT, of the alkali phosphatases...).
Other biologic parameters directly bound to the cancer are sometimes recovered:Â hypercalcemia (increase of the calcium in blood), hypoglycemia.
The radiological exams recover some elements in favor of the cancer diagnosis. The scan of the liver recovers one or several reminiscent masses. A scanner of the abdomen is achieved to visualize the size and the number of the metastases, as well as their extension.
If the cancer of origin is not known, a Puncture Hepatic Biopsy will be achieved if the general state permits it. It is about introducing a fine needle in the liver, to the level of the tumor, in order to appropriate cancerous cloths sufficiently to be able to analyze it and to try to recover the cancer of origin then.
[Secondary cancer in the liver]Â Evolution of the illness
Often, the evolution of the secondary cancers of the liver is not very good, because the presence of metastases is the sign that the cancer of origin began to "to swarm" through the organism.
[Secondary cancer in the liver]Â Treatment
The treatment of the secondary cancers of the liver is disappointing. The chemotherapy and the radiotherapy are rather little efficient. The hopes of survival are brought by the exérèses when these are possible (unique metastasis or metastases few and localized well, patient in good general state).
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