Liver tumours

Abstract:

Most liver diseases, including liver tumours, have non-specific, mild and subtle clinical symptoms, which develop only in advanced stages of the disease. Most patients with benign liver tumours do not require any treatment interventions, but they need to be followed-up by ultrasound for a possible tumour growth. On the other hand, hepatocellular carcinoma is associated with chronic liver disease, usually cirrhosis, in more than 90% of the cases. The treatment modality depends on the size of primary tumour, number of focal lesions and functional liver reserve. The therapy of choice is surgical resection, although chemotherapy has been administered in recent years with more success than before. Sorafenib has been recently registered and authorized for the treatment of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma, because significantly improves their total survival rate. Routine screening of the population at risk consists of six-month examinations, alpha-fetoprotein determination and liver ultrasound.

Key words:
hepatocellular carcinoma; hepatitis C; liver cirrhosis; liver neoplasms; sorafenib