Liver Cancer Surgery in Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Essentially, there are two ways to cure liver cancer. The most commonly used liver cancer treatment options are:
- Surgical resection: This liver cancer surgery removes the tumor from the organ by cutting the liver. The patient receives the best outcome if the complete cancer is removed from the organ.
- Liver transplant: This type of liver cancer treatment is the best option when it’s available. It’s used when cancer has spread over a large portion of the organ or when the tumor’s location doesn’t allow it to be removed.
In certain cases, a liver cancer doctor can suggest other forms of treatment. For example, smaller liver cancers are often treated with ablation or radiation instead of the mentioned liver cancer surgery options.
Partial Hepatectomy
Partial hepatectomy is a liver cancer surgery that removes a part of the organ. Since the procedure removes a part of the liver, the patient must be in good health to be approved for surgery. Usually, that means having a single tumor that hasn’t grown into blood vessels.
Firstly, the liver cancer doctor performs imaging tests to determine if cancer can be removed entirely. With the help of CT and MRI with angiography, a specialist can have a better idea of the size and the danger of the tumor. Still, sometimes the doctor discovers the tumor is too large to operate on during the surgery.
Risks and Possible Side Effects
Considering how delicate liver cancer surgery is, you should only leave it in the hands of skilled and experienced surgeons. The liver cancer doctor must try to completely remove the tumor while leaving the patient with enough liver to function.
Still, there are potential risks you should keep in mind:
- Infection
- Bleeding
- Anesthesia complications
- Pneumonia
- Blood clots
- Liver cancer
Liver Transplant
When it’s possible, a transplant is the best liver cancer treatment option. After this surgery, the new liver will function properly, and the risk of a new cancer appearing is significantly reduced.
There are many occasions when a transplant is a right choice. Still, most commonly, a liver cancer doctor will decide on a transplant for patients with one or multiple smaller tumors.
Unfortunately, not all patients get the healthy organ their body requires because not enough livers are donated.
Risks and Possible Side Effects
Just like any other liver cancer surgery, transplants have potential side effects. The ones mentioned below you should know about:
- Infection
- Bleeding
- Anesthesia complications
- Blood clots
- New liver rejection
Liver tumor
Both benign and malignant tumors are abnormal masses that can form in the liver. This occurs when cells begin to reproduce at an increased rate.
What Are Cancerous Liver Tumors?
Most cancerous liver tumors come into the organ by spreading from the original source of cancer. When this happens, the patient goes through metastatic liver cancer.
If a patient is diagnosed with metastatic cancer, their liver tumor treatment will be determined based on multiple factors. Those include:
- Age
- Health
- Medical history
- Extent of disease
- Expectations
- Preference
- Medicine, procedure, and therapy tolerance
In other cases, a tumor can originate in the liver, causing primary liver cancer(hepatoma).
In the case of hepatoma, the patient’s liver tumor treatment may include:
- Chemotherapy
- Surgery
- Liver transplant
- Radiation therapy
What Are Noncancerous Liver Tumors?
Benign liver tumors are quite common, and since they don’t produce symptoms, most patients find out through an ultrasound, CT, or MRI. There are multiple types of noncancerous liver tumors, including:
- Hemangioma: Hemangioma is a mass of abnormal blood vessels which doesn’t require liver tumor treatment.
- Hepatocellular adenoma: Hepatocellular adenoma tumors often remain undetected. This type of tumor is often linked to the use of certain drugs and rarely develops into cancer.
Liver Cyst
Fluid-filled sacs that appear on a liver scan are called liver cysts. Nearly none grow too large to cause symptoms, and almost all liver cysts are benign.
Are Liver Cysts Common?
There are multiple liver cyst treatment options out there. Doctors mostly rely on monitoring the situation, but certain cases require medication or liver cyst surgery.
Benign cysts are the most common among all types of liver cysts. It is estimated that about 15% of Americans have liver cysts. Mostly, the affected patients are 30 to 70 years old, but only about 10% develop noticeable symptoms.
Rarely do liver cysts can become precancerous or develop into cancer. Roughly between 1% and 5% of all liver cysts turn precancerous. And, 30% of those develop into cancerous cysts that require surgery.
Liver Cyst Treatment
In most cases, liver cysts don’t need to be treated. Doctors will decide on a liver cyst surgery in certain situations when the cyst has grown over four centimeters across.
These are some of the most common liver cyst treatment options:
- Cyst fenestration: This liver cyst surgery removes the wall of the cyst.
- Liver cyst surgery: Surgery is used when the removal of cysts is necessary.
- Percutaneous aspiration: This procedure is used to drain the cyst of fluids. It is performed with CT imaging and needles.
- Transarterial embolization (TACE): This complicated procedure works by providing the liver with cancer medicine and stopping it from living the cancer-infected organ.
- Transplantation: A transplant is the used solution when the patient’s liver doesn’t respond to medication or can’t be subject to surgery.