Surgery for Liver Cancer

The best way to cure liver cancer is to remove all of the cancer in the liver by surgery (resection):

• Partial hepatectomy - The surgeon removes the part of the liver where the cancer is located. This part could be a wedge of tissue, an entire lobe, or a larger portion of the liver. The surgeon also takes out some of the healthy tissue around the tumor.
  

  You can only have a partial hepatectomy if the part of your liver that is not affected by the cancer is working well. This is critical because after your doctor takes out the cancerous part of your liver, you need to have enough healthy liver tissue left to carry out all of the critical jobs of the liver.

  If your cancer cannot be removed by surgery because of cirrhosis of the liver, you might be a candidate for a liver transplant. Specifically, a liver transplant is an option for you if you have one to three small tumors.
  
  

• Total hepatectomy and liver transplant - The surgeon removes your entire liver (total hepatectomy) and replaces it with a healthy liver from a donor. After a transplant operation, you will take medications to prevent your body from rejecting the transplanted liver. A liver transplant is most effective in people with small tumors, and it can treat both the cancer and the liver disease that led to the cancer.

  A liver transplant is possible only when a donated liver is available. Relatively few livers are available for transplant into people with liver cancer because they are usually used for people with liver diseases that are more likely to be cured. In some cases, living donors give part of their liver for transplant to a close relative. However, this is risky for the donor and very few living donor transplants are done for patients with liver cancer in the United States.

This content has been reviewed and approved by Myo Thant, MD.