Hello, my brother was diagnosed today with hepatocellular carcinoma. He is a Vietnam Veteran and has been in the VA medical care system for many years. He has had symptoms such as swollen feet - too swollen to walk - for at least four years. He has had many symptoms of the disease for many years. I want to know, if there were any preventative measures on the part of his VA doctors that might have helped him prevent this diagnosis. I had been with him myself when he asked the doctors about his feet and there was no concern from the doctors part other that telling him to soak them and stay off of them as much as possible. The same with other symptoms, as well as evidence of lesions on the liver that now, have me scratching my head and asking if there might have been an issue of negligence on the part of his treating physician at the time.

Summarized question: Could hepatocellular carcinoma be diagnosed early and prevented?