Hepatocellular carcinoma

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a primary malignancy (cancer) of the liver. Most cases are secondary to either hepatitis infection (hepatitis B or C usually) or cirrhosis (alcoholism being the most common cause of hepatic cirrhosis).

Treatment options and prognosis are dependent on many factors but especially on tumor size and staging.

Table of contents

1 Diagnostics, Screening and Monitoring 2 Treatment 3 External Reference

Diagnostics, Screening and Monitoring

Primary method of diagnostic is ultrasonography. Once diagnosticed, further investagtion is done using color Doppler, Computed axial tomography (CT scan), and Magnetic_resonance_imaging (MRI).

These features to analyzed:

• involvement of liver vessels
• presence of a tumor capsule
• presence of abdominal extrahepatic metastases
• presence of doughter nodules
• vascularity of the lesion

Magnetic Resonance scan is the best method to detect the presence of a tumor capsule.

Treatment

• Surgery surgery to remove the tumor or liver transplantation can be use to treating small or slow-growing tumors if they are diagnosed early.
• Percutaneous Ethanol Injection (PEI) Among nonsurgical options, this is usually the treatment of choice for patients with small (3 cm or less in diameter) tumors.
• Transcatheter Arterial Chemoembolization (TACE) is usually perform in the treatment of large tumors (larger then 3 cm and less then 4 cm in diameter) most frequently performed by intraarterially injecting an infusion of antineoplastic agents mixed with iodized oil (such as Lipiodol).
• Combined PEI and TACE is used for turmors larger then 4 cm in diameter.

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External Reference

• http://www.rad.unipi.it/works/hcc/presentation-hcc.html
• http://cpmcnet.columbia.edu/dept/gi/carcinoma.html
• http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000280.htm

Health science - Medicine - Gastroenterology

Diseases of the esophagus - stomach

Halitosis - Nausea - Vomiting - GERD - Achalasia - Esophageal cancer; - Esophageal varices; - Peptic ulcer; - Abdominal pain; - Stomach cancer - functional dyspepsia;

Diseases of the liver - pancreas - gallbladder - biliary tree

Hepatitis - Cirrhosis - NASH - Budd-Chiari syndrome; - Hepatocellular carcinoma; - Pancreatitis - Pancreatic cancer - Gallstones - Cholecystitis

Diseases of the small intestine

Peptic ulcer; - Malabsorption (e.g. celiac disease;, lactose intolerance;, fructose malabsorption;, Whipple's disease;) - Lymphoma

Diseases of the colon

Diarrhea - Appendicitis - Diverticulitis - Diverticulosis - IBD (Crohn's disease; and Ulcerative colitis;) - Irritable bowel syndrome - Constipation - Colorectal cancer - Hirschsprung's disease; - Pseudomembranous colitis;