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Your liver is the largest internal organ in your child’s body and helps to filter harmful substances like poisons and toxins out of your child’s blood. It also creates bile, which your child’s body uses to digest the fats they eat and stores the sugar that their body uses for energy.
Normally, cells in your child’s body reproduce at a certain rate and live for a certain time before dying. Sometimes, these cells can be damaged in a way that causes them to grow too fast or stops them from dying. This can lead to a lump of cells called a tumor. When this tumor starts spreading through your child’s liver or other parts of their body, it is called liver cancer.
There are 2 kinds of liver cancer:
Liver cancer is a serious disease, and your child’s chances of recovering or surviving depend on a few factors, such as other diseases they might have and, most importantly, the stage of the cancer. A stage is a way of describing how much the cancer has grown, and whether it has spread to other parts of the body. Liver cancer stages are a bit different than stages for some other cancers since doctors often use the Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer (BCLC) Staging System. The stages of liver cancer in this system include:
The symptoms of liver cancer can vary depending on the individual person, the stage of the disease, and other factors. Common symptoms include:
Sometimes, a child might not have any symptoms at all, especially during the early stages of the disease. If the liver cancer has metastasized (spread to other parts of your child’s body), they might have symptoms from other types of cancer.
The basic cause of liver cancer is damage to the cells in the liver. Usually, this damage just kills the cell, but sometimes it can make the cell start to grow and replicate without stopping. This can result in a lump of cells called a tumor. If this tumor starts to spread to other parts of the body, it is called cancer.
Most of the time, doctors aren’t sure what causes the cell damage that leads to liver cancer, but they have found some things that can increase your child’s chances of developing this disease. Some of these risk factors include:
If your doctor thinks your child has liver cancer, the doctor will do a physical exam to look for basic symptoms of the disease. During the exam, they will ask you and your child questions about your child’s medical history and might put pressure on your abdomen, ribcage, and back to look for pain, tenderness, or lumps.
After the exam, your doctor might order one or several of these tests:
If your child has liver cancer, their doctors and other members of their medical team will work together to decide on the treatment that will work best for you. Their recommendation will depend on several factors, such as:
There are many possible treatments for liver cancer, such as:
Doctors don’t always know what causes liver cancer, so in many ways, there is no sure way to prevent it. However, there are some steps your child can take to reduce their risk factors for liver cancer and other types of cancer, such as: