Some observations on primary carcinoma of the liver : with references to museum specimens / by F.J. Wheeler.

  • Wheeler, F. J.
Date:
[1909?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Some observations on primary carcinoma of the liver : with references to museum specimens / by F.J. Wheeler. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    cancer of the female pelvic organs die in hospital. It may be that secondary deposits in the liver from these organs are not so common as they are generally believed to be. Another suggestion is that malignant disease is increasing in men. Out of 100 cases of secondary deposits, collected from the post-mortem records of St. George’s Hospital for ten years (1892—1902), sixty-six were males and thirty-four females.1 Age and sex.—Primary hepatic cancer can occur at any age, although the usual time for it to appear is between the ages of 40 and 60 years. It is more often found in males than females four out of the six cases occurred in the former. The ages of these patients were sixty-two, sixty-five, sixty-seven and thirteen years. The remaining two were in females, whose ages were thirty-two and sixty-two respectively. Although primarily a disease of adult life, it occasionally occurs- in children. An interesting series of primary malignant growths of the liver in children under fifteen years of age was published in 1897.3 There were twenty-nine cases collected from the literature. Eleven of these were carcinomata, the remainder being sarcomata. The ages ranged from eight weeks to fourteen years. Recently two cases occurring in infants of seven and nine months have been recorded.4 Clinical Characters. The six cases present a few points of clinical interest:— Onset and early symptoms.—The onset was usually insidious, and marked by increasing gastric disturbance in four of the cases, where there was a definite alcoholic history. The earliest symptoms here were nausea on waking in the morning, accompanied in one instance by actual vomiting. Loss of appetite and inability to take solid food quickly followed. In one instance the gastric trouble was preceded by an increasing dislike of fat. Haemate- mesis and epistaxis occurred early in one case. The remaining two cases (case 1 and case 6) are clinically of exceptional interest. In one, the boy of thirteen years, no symptoms were present beyond slight drowsiness and an enlarging abdomen. He was admitted into Addison Ward, under Hr. Taylor, in April,
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