Primary liver cancer is currently the fourth most common malignant tumor and the second cause of tumor death in mainland China, which seriously threatens the life and health of people on the mainland.
The pathogenesis and epidemiological characteristics of liver cancer in China are very Chinese characteristics, hepatocellular carcinoma onset is hidden, the degree of malignancy is high, the disease progresses rapidly, most patients have developed to the middle and advanced stages when they are diagnosed, and radical surgery can no longer be performed.
1. What causes liver cancer?
Including cirrhosis, hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection, hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, alcohol, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (metabolic-related fatty liver disease), and diabetes mellitus, as well as long-term exposure to carcinogens such as aflatoxin and aristolochic acid, the family history of liver cancer can significantly increase the risk of liver cancer in virally infected people.
2. How long can I live with liver cancer?
About 260,000 people die of liver cancer worldwide each year, of which the mainland accounts for 42.5%.
The etiology and prognosis of liver cancer are closely related to clinical stage, for early liver cancer, its 5-year survival rate can reach 80%-90%, but once liver cancer enters the advanced stage, its survival time is generally only about half a year.
Liver cancer is usually found in the middle and advanced stages. If it was more than 20 years ago, the survival time without treatment was generally more than half a year.
The current treatment technology has improved significantly, and the five-year survival rate after surgery and treatment can reach more than 50%, but the recurrence rate is also very high to 70%.
What factors affect the survival time of liver cancer?
1. Factors of liver cancer itself
Types of liver cancer
Liver cancer includes both primary liver cancer and metastatic liver cancer.
Primary liver cancer can be divided into hepatocellular carcinoma, bile duct cell carcinoma and mixed liver carcinoma according to cell type. According to the morphology of the tumor, it can be divided into nodular type, large mass type and diffuse type.
Different types of liver cancer symptoms will have different degrees of erosion on the body, so the survival cycle of different types of patients will also be different.
Staging of liver cancer
Liver cancer can be divided into early liver cancer, middle liver cancer and advanced liver cancer. If early liver cancer is found early and treated in time, it can be cured, and the survival period will not be much different from that of normal people, which can be said to be a cure for liver cancer. Overall, the 5-year survival rate of this part of liver cancer patients will reach 60%-70%.
If it is advanced liver cancer, it can be combined with interventional hepatic artery chemoembolization, targeted drug therapy, and immunotherapy. Although it cannot be cured, it can delay the progression of liver cancer, improve quality of life, prolong survival time, and even survive for several years in some people. If the patient is completely untreated, the condition will progress quickly and the expected survival time will be shorter. Of course, there may be individual exceptions.
If it is end-stage liver cancer, then all the treatment effects are very poor, and the main purpose at this time is to alleviate symptoms and reduce pain, and symptomatic supportive treatment is mainly.
Metastasis and spread of liver cancer
The main routes of hepatic cancer spread and metastasis are hematogenous metastasis, lymphatic metastasis and implant metastasis. Different routes of metastasis, different sites of metastasis, and different symptoms of metastasis and the degree of erosion of the body.
Some patients do not have metastasis and spread of liver cancer, and the recovery of treatment will be better and the survival period will be longer. Some patients experience different degrees and ranges of metastatic spread. If liver cancer spreads to important areas, it will seriously threaten the life safety of liver cancer patients.
2. Patient factors
The patient's constitution
How long you can live is also related to the patient's constitution.
Some liver cancer patients have poor physical fitness, or have other chronic diseases themselves; some patients have good physique and strong immunity, even after surgery or chemotherapy, they can quickly return to the best state, so that the survival cycle will become longer.
The patient's mood
Some liver cancer patients have a long-term mental state of poor and depressed because of the disease, resulting in endocrine disorders and decreased immunity, which further accelerates the development of cancer cells and shortens the life cycle.
Nutrition of the patient.
In terms of diet, special attention should also be paid to nutritional collocation, and high-protein, high-calorie, high-vitamin, and low-fat foods should be given to enhance the patient's physique, which is also the key to determining the survival period of the patient.
3. Choice of treatment methods
Surgical treatment
Patients with early detection of liver cancer or those with a chance of surgery are much better off.
According to statistics, for patients with early or ultra-early liver cancer, the 5-year survival rate after radical resection can reach about 60%.
If the diagnosis of liver cancer is confirmed, if there is a surgical condition or the preferred surgical treatment, others can be combined with liver transplantation and other treatments. For liver cancer lesions are few, the diameter of the lesion is less than 5 cm or even only one or two cm, and most people can last for 5 years or even more than 10 years through surgical treatment.
If it is accompanied by gastrointestinal bleeding, hepatic encephalopathy, cirrhosis, liver rupture and bleeding, etc., it generally does not last for 5 years.
Having liver cancer is not the same as giving patients a death sentence, and some liver cancer patients have not been found at all and healed themselves.
Topical treatment
But as the staging gets late, the survival time is greatly shortened. Especially for advanced patients who lose the opportunity to operate as soon as they are discovered, it is difficult to say.
At this stage, the most classic and most commonly used treatment method is interventional embolism + drug perfusion therapy. Through the femoral artery intubation to the hepatic artery, the embolic agent is injected directly into the blood vessel supplying the tumor, and the chemotherapy drug is injected at the same time, so that the blood supply of the tumor is interrupted, resulting in tumor necrosis, which is of great help for palliative control of the progression of liver cancer and delaying the disease. There are also radiofrequency ablation and ultrasound ablation of liver cancer, which are also helpful for controlling the disease.
Systemic treatment
At present, it is mainly targeted therapy or targeted combination immunotherapy.
A variety of targeted drugs for the treatment of liver cancer have been introduced, especially targeted drugs combined with immunotherapy, which has prolonged the survival period of liver cancer to a certain extent.
Studies have proved that effective treatment methods are applied comprehensively, and some patients have a survival period of more than 2 years. In general, these therapeutic drugs are expensive and the treatment effect is much worse than that of lung cancer and breast cancer.
Advanced liver cancer has fewer effective treatments and shorter survival times. After active treatment, the general survival period is about 1 year, and if effective treatment is not obtained, most survival is about half a year.