Primary Liver Cancer - Cancer: Pancreatic & Liver Message Board

Scare-D-Cat · 02-02-2004, 12:39 PM

Hello everyone,

I have an acquaintaince with primary liver cancer (a young adult - much too young!). The symptoms presented as pain in back, severe weight loss, pain, and now jaundice & bruising abdomen. Apparently there are several tumors in the liver and Dr's operated last week. Only immediate family allowed to visit right now, and no one else has heard any news of the surgery yet.

I know that liver cancer is normally fatal and patients die within 3 to 6 months. Do you think if they were operating, that is because the Dr's feel there is a good chance my friend may survive? If it was inoperable, I wouldn't think they would go in and do a painful and invasive, risky surgery. Wouldn't they just treat it palliatively with pain killers, etc? This person is also on the wait list for a liver transplant.

Does anyone know of any survivor stories of liver cancer? Or just any personal experiences?

Thank you!

timsworld73 · 02-03-2004, 07:48 AM

Its hard to say. They may have done all the MRI and CT scans and thought that if the tumors are small enough and it certian places, then go to surgery and get them out. Or they might have went in to do something pallative. Which means to do surgery to correct a problem that is causing so much pain. Being so young they might do things they might not do on an 80 year old person with liver cancer. My mother was just diagnosed with gallbladder cancer thqt spread to her liver. Now she has a 5 cm tumor on her liver. Surery that removes all the tumors is the only real chance to be cured, even though that is not a given. But they have several things they can do. We told the Dr. that we will not accept the diagnosis of cancer in your liver and be left to waste away. If you can transplant livers to 70 year olds you can do something for my 49 year old mother. If you can find out all the information you can then let us know. Believe me it is not fun to go through, and we keep our faith through God. When you dont know if you will live or die, God sounds like a really good choice dont he.

cindy1951 · 02-15-2004, 01:49 PM

I have had Liver Cancer and i had surgery a year ago Jan 28th and they took out the left lobe of my liver and i have just had a another scan and i am cancer free at this time so as far as i know they would only operate if they think it would get it all Hope your friend is fine

FluffySockers · 02-17-2004, 12:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scare-D-Cat

Hello everyone,

I have an acquaintaince with primary liver cancer (a young adult - much too young!). The symptoms presented as pain in back, severe weight loss, pain, and now jaundice & bruising abdomen. Apparently there are several tumors in the liver and Dr's operated last week. Only immediate family allowed to visit right now, and no one else has heard any news of the surgery yet.

I know that liver cancer is normally fatal and patients die within 3 to 6 months. Do you think if they were operating, that is because the Dr's feel there is a good chance my friend may survive? If it was inoperable, I wouldn't think they would go in and do a painful and invasive, risky surgery. Wouldn't they just treat it palliatively with pain killers, etc? This person is also on the wait list for a liver transplant.

Does anyone know of any survivor stories of liver cancer? Or just any personal experiences?

Thank you!

hard to say definetly. It depends on the case, My grandfather must be reallllyyyy lucky, it went years undiagnosed only was in one lobe, and he's been on chemo for only a few months to shrink it so they can remove it.

ktee_uk · 02-17-2004, 02:55 PM

As I understand it, they will only operate to remove a tumour in the liver if they are certain to remove it all and not leave anything behind. This is because of the very fast regrowth of the liver tissue. If there was any tumour left behind then it too would regrow very rapidly and possibly continue growing at that pace and engulph the rest of the liver. So if you do have your tumours taken out then they must think there is a good chance of a reasonably positive outcome.