Chen Hua (pseudonym), 30 years old, had a dry cough accompanied by pain in his right shoulder and lower right rib cage for more than half a year. Doctors at the local hospital diagnosed him with chronic pharyngitis, and the treatment was not effective. Finally, he was transferred to Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, where, after imaging and blood tests, doctors found that his right upper diaphragm was bulging and irritating his lungs to cause his cough. The reason for the bulging right upper diaphragm was actually a large tumor on the liver. Liu Chao, deputy director of hepatobiliary and pancreatic surgery at Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, said that there are few patients who are treated as respiratory diseases because of a large tumor that irritates the diaphragm and causes cough. Many patients repeatedly treated but not cured, took many detours, and when they found out it was liver tumor, they often missed the best treatment time, which is a great pity. When it comes to liver cancer, many people think of liver pain, but in fact, there are various manifestations of liver cancer. Liu Chao said, “Besides coughing, the protruding liver tumor will stimulate the diaphragm and cause low back pain. Some liver cancer patients will have abdominal pain and abdominal distension, which is because the portal vein is blocked and causes ascites, resulting in the symptom of abdominal distension. Other patients have their stomach and duodenum compressed by the protruding tumor and feel pain when they eat down, thinking that it is indigestion and treating according to gastric disease, which delays the condition of the patient. Therefore, chronic cough, back pain and stomach pain, which cannot be cured for a long time, need to be alert to the possibility of tumor. Liu Chao said, like the above case, the tumor was found only after dry coughing for more than half a year, and the tumor has grown to more than 10 cm, even if it is surgically removed, the prognosis is not ideal. This is because liver cancer progresses fast, the fastest one can double in just one month, for example, 2 cm grows to 4 cm and 4 cm grows to 8 cm, it only takes about two months. And the prognosis of 2 cm liver cancer is completely different from that of 8 cm liver cancer. Clinically, liver cancer less than 3 cm is called “small liver cancer”, and the 5-year survival rate of such small liver cancer can reach 65.4%. Therefore, experts emphasize that in order to detect liver cancer at an early stage, it is better to do “imaging and blood sampling” at the same time, such as ultrasound, CT, MR, etc., and then combined with tumor index (blood sampling), in a two-pronged approach. In clinical practice, about 30% of patients are insensitive to AFP and have false negative AFP, but this does not mean that the tumor does not exist, therefore, a more accurate judgment can only be made by combining imaging examinations.