Liver Cancer Staging 

What Are The Stages Of Liver Cancer?

Before spelling out the details of the stages of liver cancer, it helps to understand the criteria for judging what a liver cancer "stage" is.

Liver cancer staging is simply a way of describing liver cancer progression, and what form that progress has taken.

It's important to remember, however, judging liver cancer staging is more complicated than judging stages for other types of cancer because liver cancer patients may also have liver damage. This fact makes a difference in determining the prognosis and treatment possibilities.

The lower the stage, the more likely it is that treatment will lead to a positive outcome. Inoperable liver cancer occurs in the higher stages.

The judgment of a stage depends on

• the size of a tumor
• the location: is the cancer present in just one lobe, or both?
• the "spread" or extent of the cancerous cells.

The third criteria is divided into two parts:

• Has the cancer grown into or around blood vessels?
• Has the cancer spread into adjacent lymph nodes or organs?

Using these criteria to judge the stage of liver cancer, medical professionals and researchers have come up with the following groupings.

Stage I - The tumor measures 2 cm or less, occupies a single area and can be removed surgically.

Stage II - Cancer occupies one or more locations but hasn't spread to nearby blood vessels or lymph nodes. When this is the case, doctors divide Stage II in two more possibilities:

1. there's a single tumor 2 cm or more is present, or
2. there are several tumors, all are less than 2 cm in diameter, and the cancer is present in only one lobe of the liver.

Stage III - Liver cancer at this stage is considered to be advanced, and is divided into several sub-stages:

Stage III A - The cancer has not spread to other organs or lymph nodes. This stage is further broken down in two ways:

• There's one tumor, larger than 2 cm and nearby blood vessels have been affected.
• There are several tumors 2 cm or larger and nearby blood vessels have been affected.

Stage III B - Tumors can be of any size, and cancer cells have spread to adjacent lymph nodes without affecting other organs. Nearby blood vessels may or may not be affected.

Stage IV -

Stage IV is final stage liver cancer. At this stage, liver cancer is judged to be "disseminated" or "diffused," meaning one or more of the following:

• the cancer has spread to more than one lobe of the liver,
• the cancer has spread to other parts of the body,
• tumors can be any size or number,
• blood vessels are affected, and
• nearby lymph nodes may or may not be involved.

Stage IV is often considered to be terminal liver cancer because it is so difficult to treat.