Hello! I have been a doctor for 21 years. My name is Georgy Olegovich Sapego. In this article, I will talk about cysts in the liver.
There are cysts in the liver. They are usually found by chance on ultrasound. More often than not, nothing bad happens from such cysts.
The larger the cyst, the more chances that something will be wrong with it. Such a cyst can cause bleeding, can break into the abdominal cavity or into the bile duct. The cyst can also fester, or it grows so quickly that it compresses the bile ducts.
Some types of cysts can grow tumors.
Sometimes parasites grow cysts in the liver. If such a thing bursts, it can cause an acute allergic reaction or even shock.
In such cases, the cysts have to be urgently operated on.
When a cyst is not quite a cyst
It happens that a cyst is found in the liver, but there is still something in it, and it turns out that it is rather a tumor.
And there is also a hemangioma or a tumor of the liver, which live and grow for a long time like a node, and then a cyst suddenly appears inside them.
Simple cyst
It will contain a clear liquid and no bile.
Such cysts are found in about 1% of people. And by chance already at the autopsy. These people lived peacefully and died from other reasons. They might not even know about a cyst in the liver. This is the question of whether you need to do an ultrasound one more time.
These simple cysts range in size from a few millimeters to gigantic. A case of a simple cyst with a volume of 17 liters is described. It is clear that such a thing will disturb.
Everyone has liver cysts, but for some reason they bother women more often. Especially large cysts grow in women over 50.
It happens that a large cyst completely strangles the right or left lobe of the liver. Then the remaining share increases and takes over the entire load.
A simple liver cyst is difficult to distinguish from a cyst that turns into a tumor, or from a parasitic cyst. Therefore, if you have found a cyst, then do whatever the doctor says.
What to do with cysts
Usually they don't do anything. If the cyst does not bother, then they live peacefully with it.
The cyst is monitored. If the cyst is 4 cm or more, then you will have to do an ultrasound from time to time to make sure that it is stable and nothing happens to it. If nothing happens with a cyst for 2 - 3 years, then you can forget about it.
Cystadenoma of the liver
It is a benign liver tumor that grows like a cyst. It hurts, is accompanied by loss of appetite and interferes with life. All would be fine, but such cysts in about 15% of cases turn into a malignant tumor. So they get rid of them surgically.
Cystadenocarcinoma
It is a malignant tumor of the liver that looks like a cyst. This kind of thing is also treated by surgeons.
Echinococcal cyst of the liver
It is a parasite in the liver. They get it from dogs. Remember the incident with the cadets of the military school? There, school-age boys indulged in nicotine-containing sustanza, to which Asian manufacturers traditionally added chicken droppings. And now, along with the chicken, the droppings of an infected dog got into this thing. Many children fell ill.
Such a thing usually does not manifest itself in any way, but it can begin to grow and squeeze everything around. And if it breaks through somewhere, it will be really bad.
Metastases
Sad story. Sometimes we give people an ultrasound of the liver, and everything is in the nodes. These are metastases.
Metastases are similar to cysts because they have decay inside. The malignant tumor grows so fast that it suffocates itself. The blood vessels do not keep up with it; a site of necrosis appears in the center of the tumor from a lack of blood supply. It falls apart - falls apart. And the resulting hole is filled with liquid. So it is called: "tumor with decay".
Metastases of ovarian cancer, pancreas, kidney and colon cancer are more often found in the liver.
There are many different cysts in the liver, but most of the time they are not harmful. Therefore, if something bothers you, then see your doctor. If you do an ultrasound for yourself, then you will have to worry and watch your liver. This is not always helpful.
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