According to recently released data from the Centers for Disease Control, liver cancer death rates are increasing even though the death rate for all other types of cancer combined is decreasing. 

Sam Lubner, MD, associate professor (CHS), Hematology, Medical Oncology and Palliative Care, spoke about the topic in a televised interview. 

While the risk factors for many other cancer types are being recognized and addressed, he explained - for example, declining smoking rates causing a drop in lung cancer cases - liver cancer is an end result of a series of risk factors that accumulate over 20 years or more. 

"Most patients [with liver cancer] present asymptomatically," said Dr. Lubner. "This isn't the kind of thing where you can see a mass, or you're coughing up blood or some other alarming system...what it really takes is a vigilant primary care doctor to ask the right questions about transfusions before 1992, injection drug use, alcohol, and obesity." 

Resources:

• "Doctor talks about increase in liver cancer death rates," WISC-TV, July 19, 2018

Photo (top): Dr. Sam Lubner presents during a continuing medical education event (file photo from 2015). Photo credit: Clint Thayer/Department of Medicine