Metastatic liver cancer

[Marquetta]

Metastatic liver cancer is a cancer that has spread to the liver from elsewhere in the body.

Weight loss and a poor appetite may be the first symptoms.
Doctors base the diagnosis on results of blood tests and usually biopsy.
Chemotherapy drugs and radiation therapy may help relieve symptoms but do not cure the cancer.

(See also Overview of Liver Tumors.)
Metastatic liver cancer most commonly originates in the lungs, breasts, large intestine, pancreas, or stomach. Leukemia (a cancer of white blood cells) and lymphoma (a cancer of the lymph system), especially Hodgkin lymphoma, may involve the liver.
Cancers spread to the liver because the liver filters most of the blood from the rest of the body, and when cancer cells break away from a primary cancer, they often enter and travel through the bloodstream. Sometimes the discovery of metastatic liver cancer is the first indication that a person has cancer.

[Kit]

Liver metastases are common in many types of cancer, especially those of the gastrointestinal tract, breast, lung, and pancreas. The first symptoms of metastases are usually nonspecific (eg, weight loss, right upper quadrant discomfort); they are sometimes the first symptoms of the primary cancer. Liver metastases are suspected in patients with weight loss and hepatomegaly or with primary tumors likely to spread to the liver. Diagnosis is usually supported by an imaging test, most often ultrasonography, spiral CT with contrast, or MRI with contrast. Treatment usually involves palliative chemotherapy.
Metastatic liver cancer is more common than primary liver cancer and is sometimes the initial clinical manifestation of cancer originating in the gastrointestinal tract, breast, lung, or pancreas.