In the early stage of liver cancer, many patients do not have any obvious symptoms. Few of them will show symptoms such as stuffy upper abdomen, loss of appetite, abdominal pain and weakness. Because of this, they are often neglected, or even treated as stomach diseases for a long time, and finally they think of checking liver only because of unsatisfactory effect, by which time the tumor has developed to middle and late stage, and the effect will be much worse if treatment is delayed. Then what are the common diagnostic methods of liver cancer? And through what means can early stage liver cancer be diagnosed? First of all, we should know and pay attention to whether we have viral hepatitis or not. Because in our country, more than 90% of liver cancers are related to hepatitis B and partly to hepatitis C. Therefore, if you know you have hepatitis B or hepatitis C, you should know that you have hepatitis C. Therefore, if you know you have hepatitis B or have been infected before, you should take it seriously and need to have regular medical checkups. In addition, many people who have hepatitis B are not aware of it, or have only had “jaundiced hepatitis” many years ago, so it is important to find out if your family has a history of hepatitis, and more importantly, to have your hepatitis B two-to-one test (not just one indicator of surface antigen, which can be missed) during your regular annual checkup to determine if you have Hepatitis B virus infection. Patients who are clearly infected are recommended to undergo regular medical checkups every year, and even more so after the age of 30, once every six months. What is a physical examination? Or what tests should be done to clarify the detection of suspected liver cancer? The following tells you. 1.Liver cancer markers and laboratory tests: Commonly speaking, it is to draw blood to check alpha-fetoprotein (AFP). This indicator can reflect whether there is liver cancer and the treatment effect of liver cancer. Although nearly 1/3 of liver cancer patients are negative for this indicator, while some patients with cirrhosis and hepatitis activity have mildly elevated this indicator, there is no other laboratory indicator that can be as convenient and effective as AFP. Therefore, if your liver function is normal, but AFP is elevated, especially if it is persistently elevated or exceeds 200ug/L for several times, then you should highly suspect the existence of liver cancer. 2.Ultrasound diagnosis: It is recommended to check liver ultrasound in every physical examination, which can detect many early liver cancers. For experienced doctors and well-equipped hospitals, liver cancer of 1cm or even smaller can be detected by ultrasound, and the effect of these tumors after removal is very good and patients can survive for a long time. Therefore, for those patients who always think they have stomach disease and the treatment effect is not good, if an ultrasound is checked in time to make sure that liver cancer is found and early treatment will have good results. ultrasound combined with AFP and hepatitis history, many patients can make preliminary diagnosis. 3.CT or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) examination: This is a very important imaging examination means. For patients who are highly suspected by the above examinations and cannot be fully diagnosed, CT or MRI must be chosen according to the situation, and the plain scan + enhanced examination should be done. We often encounter many patients who have only plain scan or only enhancement, which is actually not enough and does not help much in diagnosis. Only the combination of two conditions of scanning modalities can fully understand the manifestation of the tumor and make a correct diagnosis. Also regarding which is better, MRI or CT, it is not determined by the price, but should be chosen according to the characteristics of the tumor and the patient’s physical condition. Sometimes, a few cases need both tests to finally reach an accurate conclusion. After all, our medical science has not yet developed to the extent of omnipotence. 4. Other special examinations. It is rumored that PET-CT is a whole body scan and can find all kinds of tumors, all there is a time when many people use it as a means of medical examination and group examination. However, this view is unscientific and even dangerous. PET-CT is a relatively new examination means, which can detect many tumors that cannot be seen or identified by CT and other examinations in terms of both functional and structural changes. However, there are some limitations of this test. Firstly, it is expensive and economically burdensome; secondly, the contrast agent used for the test is radioactive, and there is a certain amount of radiation to the examiner and the surrounding people, so do not choose it unless it is necessary; finally, for most tumors, this test is very effective, but for liver cancer, mainly hepatocellular carcinoma, the sensitivity is only 50%. Many definite liver cancers that can be seen on CT may appear benign on PET-CT, which is easily misleading. Therefore, it is not recommended as a routine screening tool, but should be used as a supplement to the above tests and selected when necessary. There are many other examination methods for liver cancer, and the above are commonly used methods, basically more than 90% of liver cancer can be clearly identified through them. For rare and atypical cases, doctors will also choose other appropriate methods to help make the diagnosis. As for the general population, what they need to do is to fully understand their own health condition, be responsible for their own health, have regular effective and reasonable medical checkups, have relevant and appropriate examinations in time according to doctors’ requirements, don’t neglect and don’t be overly nervous, detect tumors early and give timely treatment in order to get the best results.