Metastatic Liver Cancer
Metastatic liver cancer is also known as secondary liver cancer. The liver cancer is the malignant growth of cells in the liver. This disease is of two types the primary liver cancer and the secondary liver cancer.
The secondary liver cancer does not originate in the liver rather it is the cancer which spreads from the other organs or areas of the body for example the breast, colon, pancreas and the lung cancer. Thus this is named as the metastatic liver cancer.
This type of metastatic liver cancer is most common in the United States. It is well understood that the majority of cancer found in the liver spread from elsewhere as their origin is in other part or organ of the body rather than. Therefore the secondary liver cancer is named after the organ in which it began. Lymphomas and leukemias can also invade the liver. So can others.
Metastatic Liver Cancer Treatment Methods
After diagnosis of the metastatic liver cancer is done the treatment method is decided based on which organ or part the cancer has spread to liver. This is generally performed by an oncologist or a cancer specialist.
The best method of metastatic liver cancer is the chemotherapy. Also surgery is done to remove some tumors which are isolated. Different methods of treatment are used to treat the metastatic liver cancer like the alcohol injection, the radio frequency ablation and cryosurgery and others.
The alcohol injection involves the injection of 100% alcohol into the tumors directly. This is generally done during any surgery while treating the metastatic liver cancer or injected under the skin. As alcohol is known to
In this procedure, pure alcohol is injected directly into tumors, either through the skin or during an operation. Alcohol dries out the cells of the tumor and eventually the cells die. This method has good results in treating the metastatic liver cancer, especially in reducing its symptoms.
The radio frequency ablation is a procedure in which the electric current in the radio frequency range is used to destroy malignant cells. This procedure is performed by a specialist using an ultrasound or CT scan as a guide. Several thin needles are inserted as small incisions in the patient’s abdomen.
Finally when the needles reach the tumor the electric current is passed and the tumors are heated. This method is useful for treating some cases of metastatic liver cancer. Though this method has its own complications but it ought to produce better outcomes than the alcohol injection method.
The other method of metastatic liver cancer treatment is the cryosurgery often known as the cryotherapy. The use of extreme cold to destroy cancer cells is the procedure involved in this method.
This process was traditionally used to treat early-stage skin cancers only in the early days but now this cryosurgery is also an option for people with primary and metastatic liver cancers where surgery goes along with this method of treatment.
The good thing about cryosurgery method of metastatic liver cancer is that it is less invasive than regular surgery and of course requires only a small incision. Because of this the metastatic liver cancer patients have less complications and easy recovery as the incision is small.