Liver cancer is when the cancer starts in your liver cells. The liver is a large organ that sits in the upper right part of your abdomen. That is beneath your diaphragm and above your stomach.
The liver can develop a variety of cancers. Hepatocellular carcinoma is the most common type of liver cancer, and it starts in the primary type of liver cell (hepatocyte). Other kinds of liver cancer are significantly less prevalent, such as intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma and hepatoblastoma.
The spread of cancer to the liver is more common than cancer in the liver cells. Metastatic cancer, rather than liver cancer, starts in another part of the body, such as the colon, lung, or breast, and then spreads to the liver. This cancer is called after the organ in which it first appeared. Metastatic colon cancer, for example, is a term that describes the cancer that starts in the colon and spreads to the liver.
