The liver cancer treatments are decided base on the stage of the cancer and the overall patient condition such as the age, overall health and other personal preferences.
The main goal of the treatment is to eliminate the liver cancer completely. At the advanced stage when the cancer can not be cure, the goal of the treatment is to be on preventing the cancer from spreading or growing so it can suppress and maintain the symptoms.
The common liver cancer treatments, especially for primary liver cancer are surgery, radiofrequency ablation and chemotherapy.
1. Surgery
Surgical resection is a procedure to remove the tumor in the organ. This technique only can be applied if the cancer still in a small size.
It is possible to cut a large section of the liver organ without it seriously affecting your health since the liver can regenerate itself. Depending on the size and site of the cancer, surgery can remove anything up to 80% of the liver.
However, the common people with liver cancer do not have a ‘normal liver’ and make the resection unsafe. It means that the liver’s regenerative ability may be significantly impaired.
2. Chemotherapy
Chemotherapy involves using a combination of powerful cancer-killing chemical agents to slow the spread of the cancer.
This liver cancer treatment is use of drugs to kill cancer cells. Once the drugs get in the blood, they spread throughout the body. This makes them useful for cancer that has spread to distant organs.
Liver cancer does not react to most chemotherapy drugs. The drugs that have worked best are cisplatin and doxorubicin 5-fluorouracil. But most researches have not shown that chemo helps liver cancer patients to live longer.
3. Radiofrequency ablation
Radiofrequency ablation may be recommended as a complement to surgery to treat liver cancer at an early stage where the tumor is smaller than 2cm in diameter.
This liver cancer treatment uses radio waves to heat up the cancer cells until they are killed off. You have an ultrasound scan during treatment so that the doctor can see where the cancer is.
Radiofrequency ablation takes around 10 to 30 minutes to complete. Depending on how much of the patient liver has been affected by cancer, the process may need to repeat for several sessions.
