Liver cancer is cancer that begins in the cells of your liver. Your liver is a football-sized organ that sits in the upper right portion of your abdomen, beneath your diaphragm and above your stomach.
Liver cancer is one of the most common forms of cancer in the world, but liver cancer is uncommon in the United States. Rates of liver cancer diagnosis are increasing in the United States.
Not all cancers that affect the liver are considered liver cancer. Cancer that begins in another area of the body, such as the colon, lung or breast, and then spreads to the liver is called metastatic cancer, rather than liver cancer. And this type of cancer is named after the organ in which it began — such as metastatic colon cancer to describe cancer that begins in the colon and spreads to the liver.
Symptoms
Most people don't have signs and symptoms in the early stages of primary liver cancer. When signs and symptoms do appear, they may include:
- Losing weight without trying
- Loss of appetite
- Upper abdominal pain
- Nausea and vomiting
- General weakness and fatigue
- An enlarged liver
- Abdominal swelling
- Yellow discoloration of your skin and the whites of your eyes (jaundice)
- White, chalky stools
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