Liver Metastasis: Understanding Cancer Spread to the Liver

A cancer diagnosis is frightening, and confusion often accompanies that fear. When cancer is diagnosed well into its development, liver metastasis is a common secondary diagnosis because cancer cells tend to travel from their site of origin to the liver.

About

• Liver metastasis is the condition when cancer is present in the liver, and it has spread there from another organ or location in the body. When liver metastasis is present, the origin of the cancer is not in the liver.

Fact

• When cancer metastasizes to the liver, it is typically a result of breast, esophageal, lung or stomach cancer.

Symptoms

• Symptoms that cancer has metastasized to the liver include abdominal pain, weight loss and jaundice. Often, liver metastasis has no symptoms until it has been present for a significant amount of time.

Treatment

• Because cancer in the liver is typically not the origin of the disease, treatment will focus on the location of cancer origin and usually involves chemotherapy. If the cancer is present in limited and concentrated areas, surgery is considered.

Prognosis

• The prognosis of cancer that has spread to the liver is dependent upon how advanced the cancer is at the location where it started, and how much it has spread to other parts of the body. If the cancer is found in early stages, treatments such as surgery, chemotherapy and radiation can be combined to lessen the effects of the cancer on life expectancy.