Liver Cancer Survival: Is cancer in the liver fatal?
If you have a cancer, the survival and outcome depends on how advanced it is at the time of diagnosis and treatment.
These are general statistics based on large groups of population which provides a trend. But, they can’t accurately tell what will happen in an individual case. No one can tell exactly how long you’ll live with liver cancer. Your life expectancy depends on your individual condition and the treatment you are going through.
Your doctor can give you more and better information about your prognosis as an individual case.
Liver cancer survival rate by stage
For each liver cancer stage, statistics are provided here that defines a general pattern of surviving with a liver cancer.
The terms used here are defined as follows:
Median survival: It is the length of time from diagnosis to the point at which half of the patients are still alive
5 year survival: It is the number of people who survive for 5 years or more after the diagnosis
Stage 0 liver cancer life expectancy
The median survival for stage 0 liver cancer is more than 3 years, without treatment.
About 70 – 90% of the people will survive for 5 years or more with treatment.
Stage A liver cancer life expectancy
The median survival rate for stage A liver cancer is 3 years, without treatment.
About 50 – 70% people will survive stage A liver cancer for 5 years or more, with treatment.
Stage B liver cancer life expectancy
The median survival rate for stage B liver cancer is 16 months, without treatment.
The median survival rate for stage B liver cancer is 20 months, with treatment.
Stage C liver cancer life expectancy
The median survival rate for stage C liver cancer is between 4 and 8 months, without treatment.
The median survival rate for stage C liver cancer is between 6 and 11 months, with treatment.
Stage D liver cancer life expectancy: What are the chances of surviving stage 4 liver cancer?
The median survival rate for stage D liver cancer is between less than 4 months, without treatment.
More: Liver Cancer (Hepatocellular Carcinoma) Types, Symptoms, Causes, Diagnosis, Treatment
Currently, no treatments are available that work well for stage D liver cancers. Your doctors may however continue to treat the symptoms you may develop to make you comfortable.
What are the factors that affect liver cancer survival rate (Liver cancer prognosis)?
Your outlook depends on the treatment you can have and treatments that you are given. This in turn depends on the stage of the cancer when it was diagnosed and treatment began. This means that outlook depends on how big the cancer is and whether it has spread (metastasized) to other organs.
The outlook also depends on the overall health of your liver tissue that has not been affected by the cancer; because it governs the treatment you can be given.
Lastly, your general health also affects the survival.
As discussed above also, cancer survival rates generally do not tell the whole story. These estimates are based on previous outcomes of large numbers of people who had the disease, but they can’t predict what will happen in any particular person’s case.
Talk to you doctor to know how the numbers may apply to you as he or she is more aware of your specific individual situation.
