Ms. Liu, who is in her 40s, was very worried after the physical examination. She said that she found that there was a tumor on her liver during the abdominal ultrasound. She felt that the sky was about to fall. She hurriedly went to the hepatobiliary department to ask the doctor. Foreign body, but according to the results of ultrasound, the possibility of hepatic hemangioma is relatively high. This is a benign tumor of the liver. At present, it is not large, less than 2 cm. It does not need special treatment, and only needs regular observation.

Although the doctor said so, Ms. Liu is still worried. She thinks that all tumors must be removed first to be relieved? If not treated, will it become liver cancer? And is it possible to diagnose a benign tumor just by looking at an ultrasound? Do I need to do other checks to confirm? With these questions in mind, today I will talk to you about hepatic hemangioma.

During the physical examination, the doctor said that there is a liver tumor, but also said that it is only a benign hemangioma. What is a hemangioma? Why is it called a tumor?

In fact, in medicine, when there is abnormal proliferation of local tissues, it is generally called a tumor. Therefore, you don’t need to worry too much when you hear that there is a tumor in your body. A tumor is not equal to cancer. A variety of benign tumors may appear in the liver, including hepatic hemangioma, liver cyst, local nodular hyperplasia, liver adenoma and so on.

Hemangioma of the liver is a tumor formed by abnormal proliferation of blood vessels in the liver, and it is the most common benign tumor in the liver. One in five people may become ill. Hemangiomas can occur at any age, but are most commonly found in women between the ages of 30 and 50.

Most hemangiomas are small, do not cause any symptoms, and are usually discovered accidentally during a health check-up or abdominal imaging for other reasons. However, when the hemangioma is larger than 10 cm, symptoms such as abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting, or easy satiety may occur. Large hemangiomas in infants can lead to a blood clotting disorder called Kassabach-Merritt syndrome.

In addition to ultrasound examination, is there any other examination to confirm liver hemangioma?

A typical hepatic hemangioma is a homogeneous, hyperechoic, and well-defined lesion on ultrasound, but if the patient has moderate-to-severe fatty liver, the liver looks very white, and the hepatic hemangioma may look like a shadow in comparison . For hemangioma less than 2 cm, as long as you go to the hospital for ultrasound examination every 6 months, and there is no change in three consecutive examinations, you can consider an examination once a year. However, if the hemangioma becomes larger, or exceeds 2 cm, the doctor will order other imaging tests, such as CT or MRI, if necessary. Although ultrasonography is quite accurate, when a 100% diagnosis cannot be made, other more precise methods are still needed to assist in the diagnosis. CT and MRI can better understand the distribution of blood flow in the tumor, and can determine the nature of the tumor.

Can hepatic hemangioma become liver cancer?

Generally speaking, hemangiomas of the liver are benign and will not become liver cancer or malignant tumors. However, due to the variability of malignant tumors, early malignant tumors may be indistinguishable from benign tumors. Therefore, when hepatic hemangioma is found, it is recommended to go to the hospital for follow-up examination with ultrasound every 6 months, mainly to check the size of the tumor. Malignant tumors usually grow larger over time. Even if the type of tumor is misjudged at the first time, the problem can still be detected early during ultrasound tracking, and there is still a good chance to receive radical surgery and treatment.

Originally, there was only one hepatic hemangioma, but after the ultrasound examination, there were two more. Why is this happening?

The cause of hepatic hemangioma is not yet clear, and some theories have been put forward in foreign countries, which may be born with some defective tumors or ectopic tissue cells. Most people will have only one hemangioma, but about 10% may have more than one. Some people will increase the number of hemangiomas with age, from only one hemangioma in the liver at first, and later become two, three or even more.

The way to deal with this situation should refer to the previous questions. If it is small, it does not need special treatment, but only needs regular inspection. If it is large, you need to consult a doctor to see if surgery is required.

Do liver hemangiomas get bigger? To what extent does it require surgery?

In addition to the increase in the number of hepatic hemangiomas, there is also a one-tenth chance that the volume of the hemangioma will become larger. The growth rate is twice the size in 18 months on average, but it usually stops growing when it grows to a certain extent. It is affected by human hormones. Studies have found that it is easy to find the growth of hemangiomas during pregnancy and the use of female hormones.

Since hemangiomas are benign lesions, most of them only require regular ultrasound follow-up examinations and do not require treatment. A small number of hemangiomas that need to be treated are because of the compression of the liver or other organs, which affects the normal physiological function, so surgery is needed to improve the treatment, but doctors do not completely use the size of the hemangioma to determine the timing of surgery. In addition, the aforementioned Kasabach-Merritt syndrome should also be treated in infants.