Abdominal cavity tumor

Your treatment plan will depend on:

The size of the tumor

If there is liver cirrhosis

Your overall health condition

Cancer stage

The treatment aimed at curing liver cancer is usually only used for early stage cancer. If tumors are discovered at a later stage, treatment methods other than surgery may be used. Your team will determine the most suitable treatment plan for you.

One or more of the following therapies can be used to treat liver cancer or alleviate symptoms:

surgical operation

Surgical procedures provide the best opportunity for successful treatment of early-stage disease patients. If all cancer cells are removed, the likelihood of successful treatment is greater.

However, complete resection of liver cancer is often impossible because the cancer is large or has spread to the liver or other parts of the body. The liver may also be damaged due to other conditions. Surgeons attempt to remove as many tumors as possible while preserving sufficient liver function.

The main surgical types for liver cancer include:

Hepatectomy: The portion of the liver with a tumor is removed. In partial hepatectomy, only the edges of the tumor and surrounding liver tissue are removed. In a major liver resection surgery, most of the liver was removed.

Liver transplantation: The diseased liver is removed and replaced with the healthy liver of the donor. For patients with advanced liver cirrhosis or when tumors cannot be surgically removed, this is an option. Liver transplantation carries the risk of serious infections and other health issues.

Life after liver cancer surgery

Enhanced rehabilitation plans allow many liver cancer patients to resume daily activities within weeks to months after undergoing liver cancer surgery.

The possible symptoms after liver cancer surgery include:

Fatigue caused by the energy consumed during liver regeneration

Abdominal effusion (ascites)

These symptoms often disappear in a timely manner. Your doctor will also carefully monitor the symptoms and signs of your cancer recurrence.

Interventional radiology

These minimally invasive surgeries use imaging guidance. This allows interventional radiologists to target tumors through small injections or needle placement. These programs are usually used for outpatient procedures. This results in much shorter hospital stays than major surgeries.

Tumor ablation: Heat (radiofrequency or microwave ablation) or extremely low temperature (cryosurgery) is used for freezing or cauterizing liver cancer. Ablation can be used when surgical removal of tumors is impossible.

Embolism treatment: The material is injected into the artery, delivering blood to the tumor. Chemotherapy or radiation therapy is targeted at tumors, not the entire body. In some cases, blood vessels leading to the tumor may be blocked. This will starve cancer cells in the blood, leading to tumor cell death. Embolism treatment includes:

Embolism chemotherapy: Small particles immersed in chemotherapy drugs are injected into the arteries, which transport blood to the tumor. This is directly providing chemotherapy to the tumor.

Radioembolization: A small pill made of plastic or other materials that carries radiation particles into an artery, which transports blood to the tumor. This can kill tumor cells. Sending radiation directly into the tumor helps to preserve as much normal liver as possible. At the same time, it also maximizes the dose of radiation damage to tumors.

Radiation therapy

The new radiation therapy technology enables doctors to more accurately target liver tumors. This means using the most radiation is harmful to healthy cells

Radiation therapy

The new radiation therapy technology enables doctors to more accurately target liver tumors. This means using the most radiation and causing the least damage to healthy cells.

The options for radiation therapy include:

Stereotactic radiation therapy (SBRT): A very high dose of radiation is used to target tumors using a beam of light. This technology is used to protect organs near the liver from radiation.

Magnetic Resonance Imaging Guided Radiotherapy (MR Guided RT): MR guided RT uses imaging to examine tumors, while the radiation beam is open. This provides a higher degree of certainty for radiation therapy.

Proton therapy: This treatment delivers high-dose radiation directly to the tumor. It can minimize damage to nearby healthy tissues to the greatest extent possible. For some patients, the success rate of this therapy is higher and the impact on the body is smaller.

chemotherapy

Chemotherapy drugs kill cancer cells, control their growth, or alleviate disease-related symptoms. Chemotherapy can be a single drug or a combination of several drugs. The type of chemotherapy depends on the type of cancer and the rate of tumor growth.

Our experts are researching new methods to deliver chemotherapy drugs directly to the liver and provide higher doses of chemotherapy with fewer side effects. Researchers are studying chemotherapy regimens aimed at maintaining the blood vessels that sustain tumor survival.

Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy mobilizes the patient's own immune system to combat cancer. It can be used alone or in combination with other therapies.

Targeted therapy

Although many treatment methods directly kill cancer cells, targeted therapy is achieved by preventing or slowing down the growth or spread of cancer.

This occurs at the cellular level. Cancer cells require specific molecules (usually in the form of proteins) to survive, reproduce, and spread. These molecules are typically manufactured by the genes that cause cancer and the cells themselves. Targeted therapy aims to interfere with or target these molecules or the oncogenes that produce these molecules.