Alcohol's Relationship with Cancer

Cancer kills more Americans each year than anything except heart disease. It is estimated that over 526 thousand Americans will die from cancer this year, and anywhere from 2 to 4 percent of these cases can be directly or indirectly attributable to excessive alcohol usage.

The strongest connection between alcoholism and cancer is seen with cancers of the mouth, pharynx and esophagus. Breast, colorectal and liver cancers also show some relationship to excessive alcohol usage, but these are still in some dispute. Together, according to the American Cancer Society, these cancers are the cause of over 125 thousand deaths in the United States each year.

People who drink excessive amounts of alcohol over long periods of time, usually alcoholics, stand a far greater risk of developing cancer than the general population. For example, 75% of American cancers of the esophagus are linked to alcoholism. Nearly 50% of mouth, pharynx and larynx cancers can be attributed to excessive drinking. When these cancer/alcoholism sufferers also smoke cigarettes, the increase in risk factor is dramatic.

Liver cancer is indirectly related to drinking. Drinking to excess, especially to the level of alcoholism, will very often cause cirrhosis or scarring of the liver. This, in turn, leads to liver cancer. Liver cancer is relatively rare in the United States; about .002% will ever contract the disease. However, alcoholics will comprise about 36% of all liver cancer cases.

Why?

Studies show that alcohol produces a substance called acetaldehyde in the body. This substance interferes with a cell's innate ability to repair its own DNA. This makes it more likely that a mutation like a cancer can occur.

Another possible explanation being studied is that alcohol may be interfering with the enzymes that normally help remove toxins from the body. If they can't do so normally, these toxins can be more potent as carcinogens as they pass through the body.

Alcohol can also assist other carcinogens, making itself a co-carcinogen. For example, someone who both smokes and drinks is at a 35 times greater risk for esophageal cancer than one who neither smokes nor drinks.

Chronic alcoholism almost always results in malnutrition. This is because it interferes with the way the body absorbs nutrients in our food. Some of these nutrients seem to promote some types of cancer when not present in sufficient enough quantities. Iron, zinc, vitamins E and B are such nutrients. Vitamin A, which is proffered by some as a cancer preventative, is also reduced in heavy drinkers' livers and esophagus's.

When diagnosed with colon cancer, a person is often put on a diet high in folic acid. However, as little as two drinks per day can completely eliminate any benefit brought by the added fruit in the diet.

Alcoholism has long been known to negatively affect the immune system. Alcoholics are more prone to infectious diseases and cancer. To keep your chances of contracting cancer to a minimum, be sure to drink no more than two alcoholic drinks three times per week or less.

Michael Russell Your Independent guide to Alcoholism

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Chemotherapy Drugs For Liver Cancer

Liver cancer can called as a metastatic cancer because in almost all cases, the cancer actually development from original cancer which has been spread to other area. But it can be specified as stage four colon cancers that cannot be recognized due to the lack of symptoms.

Your doctor may recommend to chemotherapy which is the best treatment for all cancer including liver cancer. You need to consider the best chemotherapy drugs in order to get recover from this disease faster.

Avastin is known as the best chemotherapy drugs for liver cancer. Even it is expensive, avastin can possibly extend your chances of survival by shrinking tumors for later removal.

Avastin is generally used in chemotherapy for colon cancer which shows up in the liver. The doctor may give a combination for liver cancer chemotherapy along with avastin such as Doxorubicin (Adriamycin), Cisplatin, Methotrexate, 5FU (fluorouracil), and Gemcitabine in variant doses.

Chemotherapy may give before or after surgery depending on patient's condition. But your doctor may prefer chemotherapy then surgery to remove the shrunken tumors. This happen because liver cancer usually occur when patients already have cancer in other part of body like colon cancer.

If the size of tumor is small, patient have options to do surgery first. But this condition happens in small number of cancer cases since many people have tumors in the liver that are too large for liver resection.

All chemotherapy treatment gives various side effects. But the most common chemotherapy side effects for liver cancer are lost of appetite which can be serious problem that could decrease chances of survival. But this condition can eliminate by used some drugs like marinol to increase appetite and decrease nausea.

However, the chances of survival and better quality of living are much higher than just five years ago with the great advances in cancer treatment.

Get more information about chemotherapy for cancer in chemotherapy side effects.

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Fundamental Facts of Liver Cancer

Tumors of the liver can be classified as primary or metastatic. Moreover, primary tumors can be benign or malignant. These benign tumors are quite rare, but have been reported with increasing frequency in women taking oral contraceptives for long periods. Most benign tumors have no symptoms and may regress when the oral contraceptives are discontinued. Liver cancer is more common than benign tumors and you must have the knowledge about this in order to know what you can do to prevent it or manage and treat it.

The predisposing risk factors of liver cancer which led to its development are chronic liver disease from hepatitis, alcoholic and post necrotic cirrhosis, long term androgenic therapy, long term use of oral contraceptive and exposure to inorganic arsenic, vinyl chloride, and various pesticides which are harmful to the liver. These risk factors are somehow linked to the development of liver cancer.

Primary liver tumors may originate in the liver cells, bile ducts, or both. The lesions may be singular, nodular or diffuse, and may involve only a lobe or the entire liver. The malignant cells compress the surrounding normal liver cells and may spread by invading the branches of the portal vein, causing the liver to be enlarged and misshapen. Hemorrhage and necrosis are common. Direct extension of the tumor to the gallbladder, mesentery, peritoneum and diaphragm is also possible too. Primary liver tumors commonly metastasize to the lung and also metastasize to the portal lymph nodes, adrenal glands, spleen, kidney, ovaries and pancreas.

Liver cancer symptoms may be absent, minimal, or severe depending on the tumor size and the hepatocellular damage. It can be manifested by weight loss and hepatomegaly with pain or tenderness in the right upper quadrant. Other common findings include a mass in the liver, blood tinged ascites and cachexia. Jaundice is uncommon until the terminal stage of the disease.

Prevention of liver cancer is directed at those factors that have been identified as predisposing individuals to risk. The potential for controlling this type of carcinoma through prevention of chronic liver disease from cirrhosis and hepatitis is excellent and deserves special attention. Immunization against hepatitis B virus is an effective method of prevention and should be used at a personal and community level as indicated.

Long term survival of patients with malignancies of the liver is dismal. Treatment is supportive and similar to that of patients with cirrhosis. Surgical resection is considered when there is no cirrhosis, the lesion is located in a surgically accessible area and is not multicentric and there is no spread to adjacent organs.

Other treatment modalities have been used but are only palliative. Intra-arterial infusion of chemotherapeutic agents to deliver high concentration of drugs to the tumor with fewer side effects than systemic chemotherapy can be opted. Hepatic artery embolization which reduces the blood flow to the tumor has only a short term effect due to the rapid development of collateral blood flow. Radiation therapy is also used to reduce the size of the tumor.

These are the basic facts that you need to consider when it comes to cancer of the liver. Knowledge about this kind of condition helps you think what actions that you must do in order to take care of the liver and prevent cancer.

There are specific risk factors of liver cancer that are linked to its development. These factors can be prevented if you know the basic about cancer of the liver. Find out more at http://cancerliver.org/blog/.

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