The liver is the largest internal organ and performs many important functions. Some of the functions include filtering and breaking down toxic waste in the body to eliminate it from the body and producing clotting factors to keep us from bleeding when injured or cut.
Primary liver cancer originating in the liver accounts for about 2 percent of cancers in the United States, but up to half of all cancers in some undeveloped countries. Most of the time, when cancer is found in the liver, it did not start there but has spread (metastasized) from somewhere else in the body. Because this cancer has spread from its original (primary) site, it is a secondary liver cancer. These tumors are named and treated based on their primary site (where they started). For example, cancer that starts in the breast and spreads to the liver is called breast cancer with spread to the liver – not liver cancer. It then would be treated as breast cancer.