The liver is one of the largest organs in the body. It has four lobes and fills the upper right side of the abdomen inside the rib cage. The liver has many important functions, including:
- Filtering harmful substances from the blood so they can be passed from the body in stools and urine.
- Making bile to help digest fats from food.
- Storing glycogen (sugar), which the body uses for energy.
This summary refers to primary liver cancer (cancer that begins in the liver). Treatment of metastatic liver cancer, which is cancer that begins in other parts of the body and spreads to the liver, is not included in these statistics.
SEER Cancer Stat Facts: Liver and Intrahepatic Bile Duct Cancer. National Cancer Institute. Bethesda, MD, http://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/livibd.html