Hepatic cysts are often revealed when ultrasound is done during physical examination. When faced with the disease hepatic cyst, many people will get nervous, wondering if hepatic cysts mean liver cancer and if hepatic cysts will turn into liver cancer or what harm hepatic cysts will do.
Is ultrasound reliable?
Ultrasound is the most practical, economic and non-invasive imaging examination technology. The diagnosis of hepatic cyst mainly depends on imaging examination. It is believed that ultrasound is more accurate than CT scan from the qualitative aspect of hepatic cyst. However, CT scan will provide better guidance than ultrasound when the size, number, site of hepatic cysts are to be studied. It is even so when it comes to giant hepatic cyst patient who needs surgical treatment.
What is hepatic cyst?
When told they are diagnosed with hepatic cyst, people may be worried that they are suffering from serious disease. To put it plainly, hepatic cyst is nothing but a thin wall of bubble in the liver. It may or may not contain fluid. We may have a better understanding of hepatic cyst if we think it as the bubble in a cheesecake. Hepatic cysts are most seen in the right lobe of liver. They are of different sizes, ranging from subcentimeters to over 10 cm. Some are in round shape while some in oval shape. Some hepatic cysts contain clear liquid while come contain bile. Most of the simple hepatic cysts are congenital choledochal cysts with extremely slow growth rate; some are formed because of parasites while some are formed because of bile detention caused by intrahepatic bile duct infection, edema or stones. Hepatic cysts in old people are mostly caused by degenerative changes of hepatic tissue.
Most of hepatic cysts present no symptom. Some big hepatic cysts will cause pressure symptoms or anorexia, nausea, right upper abdominal pain. Jaundice might happen when big hepatic cysts compress hepatic bile duct or common bile duct.
No treatment is required in most cases.
In most of the cases, hepatic cysts are congenital benign lesions; hence no treatment is required in most cases. Small hepatic cysts require no treatment as they deliver less pressure on liver tissues. Certain treatment can be done when the cysts are over 5 cm in size (currently, there is no unified standard). If the cysts are infected and cause liver abscess, anti-infection should be given. When necessary, puncture drainage on hepatic sanies or cystectomy is suggested to be done.
The prognosis of most cases is good. Hepatic cysts will affect liver function, cause jaundice, liver function failure and even liver cancer if they are big in number and occupy much space in liver. People with multiple hepatic cysts or big cysts should receive ultrasound regularly to monitor the changes. One or two ultrasound can be done every year.