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Illustration of the liver

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    • Services and providers for Liver Cancer in the U.S.

  • National Institutes of Health

Also called: Hepatocellular carcinoma

Your liver is the largest organ inside your body. It filters harmful substances from the blood, digests fats from food and stores the sugar that your body uses for energy. Primary liver cancer starts in the liver. Metastatic liver cancer starts somewhere else and spreads to your liver.

Risk factors for primary liver cancer include

  • Having hepatitis
  • Having cirrhosis, or scarring of liver
  • Being male
  • Low weight at birth

Symptoms can include a lump or pain on the right side of your abdomen and yellowing of the skin. However, you may not have symptoms and the cancer may not be found until it is advanced. This makes it harder to treat. Treatment options include surgery, radiation, chemotherapy or liver transplantation.

National Cancer Institute

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U.S. National Library of Medicine, 8600 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, MD 20894
National Institutes of Health | Department of Health & Human Services 		Date last updated: 05 May 2009
Topic last reviewed: 28 March 2009