Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), also referred
to as primary liver cancer, has the highest rate of rise among
cancers in the United States. The leading causes of HCC in the U.S.
are chronic hepatitis C with concurrent cirrhosis, chronic
hepatitis B infection, alcoholic cirrhosis, or any other condition
causing cirrhosis.
The greatest obstacle to improving patient survival remains the inability to find patients in need of routine liver cancer screening. Routine liver cancer screening is a liver imaging study and blood test every 6-12 months. Appropriate liver imaging studies are: 1) an ultrasound of the liver or 2) a triple phase contrast CAT scan or MRI. The reliability of ultrasound is highly dependent on who is performing the study. In countries where liver cancer is common, ultrasound is widely used to screen patients. The blood test used to detect liver cancer is an alpha fetal protein. An alpha fetal protein will be abnormally high in 70-80% of patients with a liver cancer.
The greatest obstacle to improving patient survival remains the inability to find patients in need of routine liver cancer screening. Routine liver cancer screening is a liver imaging study and blood test every 6-12 months. Appropriate liver imaging studies are: 1) an ultrasound of the liver or 2) a triple phase contrast CAT scan or MRI. The reliability of ultrasound is highly dependent on who is performing the study. In countries where liver cancer is common, ultrasound is widely used to screen patients. The blood test used to detect liver cancer is an alpha fetal protein. An alpha fetal protein will be abnormally high in 70-80% of patients with a liver cancer.