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Avatar universal

liver cancer

My stepmom had an MRI scan just yesterday, and they have found hypodense lesions on her liver, and underlying her lungs. they have said that they cannot start treatment yet due to the fact that her blood count is very low. My question is what sort of treatment is available, and how do we know how far the cancer has spread if in fact it has?
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Avatar universal
MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL
Regarding your stepmom’s low blood levels:  there are several reasons why a person with cancer experiences persistently low blood levels (let’s call it by its technical term – anemia).  The possibilities are as follows:

• Your stepmom has a mass which is actively bleeding or she has bleeding from the gastrointestinal tract due to stress from the illness, hence she is losing blood
• She might not be eating enough and is not able to acquire sufficient proteins and nutrients to build up an adequate level of red blood cells
• The cancer is sending chemical signals which slow down red blood cell production by her bone marrow
• In a worse case scenario: cancer cells could have encroached on her bone marrow and is slowly destroying it, hence lowering production

All these possibilities need to be investigated first by your doctor, because each scenario has a different treatment.  If there is active bleeding, for example, she may need to undergo surgery to stop it and possibly get some blood transfusion.  If the cause of the anemia is a slowing down of production due to cancer-induced chemical signals, she may need to get a hormone called erythropoietin, which stimulates red blood cell production.

As for treatment for the cancer, she may need to have some chemotherapy done and possibly hormonal therapy afterwards.  The details of the treatment are best determined by the doctor looking after her, so you should talk to him.  I hope my answers help.
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Avatar universal
Dean, thank you for your response.

Reading your reply, it makes sense, she did in fact have breast cancer a few years ago, but she had it cut out. So what you are saying really is that we thought it had been removed, when in actual fact it had'nt.
Our next problem is that her blood level is very low, and they say that they cannot start treatment until it is up, but it keeps dropping, my guess is from the cancer, how do we regulate her blood levels, so that we can start the treatment?
And when we talk about a treatment are we talking about chemotherapy, and what does this entail? Sorry for all the questions, this is just so new to me, and I dont understand all of it.

Your help is much appreciated.

Kirsty    
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Avatar universal
MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL
Your stepmom’s liver lesions presents with two possibilities.  The source of her liver lesions could have arisen from the liver itself, or it could have come from some other organ (e.g. lung or breast) and then extended to the liver.  From the information you’ve written, my guess is it’s the second which is the more likely scenario with your stepmom.  So what does this mean?  In terms of how far the cancer has spread,  your stepmom’s cancer is likely in an advanced stage, having spread to the liver, and possibly the lungs.  As to what sort of treatment is available, it would depend on where the cancer originally came from.  If the source of the cancer was the breast, for example, then she would be given treatment specific for breast cancer.
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