Liver Cancer
At Mount Sinai, we offer you outstanding care provided by a multidisciplinary team of distinguished specialists in liver disease, medical oncology, interventional radiology, and surgery to treat your liver cancer. Our teams work seamlessly together to ensure your best possible outcome.
Surgery is often the preferred treatment for liver cancer. Our surgeons use minimally invasive laparoscopic techniques for liver surgery whenever possible.
About Liver Cancer
Your healthy liver performs the important function of producing proteins that are important in blood clotting. The liver also contributes to the breaking down of old or damaged blood cells and processes fats to produce energy for your body. Liver cancer puts these functions at risk.
Liver cancer (also known as hepatocellular carcinoma) that starts in the liver is also known as hepatic cancer. Liver cancer that has spread to the liver from other parts of your body, such as the colon or rectum, is liver metastasis. In either case, when liver cancer grows, it can take over so much of the liver that it cannot function normally.
Our surgeons can treat liver cancer by surgically removing the tumor, or by performing a liver transplant. Patients with very small tumors can sometimes undergo ablation, a procedure in which a probe is placed into the center of the tumor and energy is used to destroy the tumor. Other treatments such as embolization, radiation, and chemotherapy are used for more advanced stages of liver cancer and can help slow tumor growth.
Mount Sinai is among the top choices in the United States for doctors to refer their patients to receive outstanding specialized liver cancer care. We provide state-of-the-art treatment for patients with all types of liver tumors.
Procedures we perform
Whether you have early stage or highly complex and advanced liver cancer, we offer a full range of therapies, including:
- Partial hepatectomy—removes the part of the liver with the tumor as well as the tissue around the edges; and a liver resection based on the size and location of the tumor. Post surgically, the remaining liver grows to its original size and normal function
- Laparoscopic hepatectomy—liver resection performed laparoscopically based on the size and location of the tumor
- Liver transplantation—when a liver transplant is required, our surgeons work with our Recanati/Miller Transplantation Institute to facilitate a transplant
- Radiofrequency ablation—uses a special probe to burn away the small cancerous tissue from the liver
- Transarterial chemoembolization—image guided minimally invasive technique involves placing a catheter through the groin into the artery of the liver tumor to destroy the cancer and control its growth.