Cancer in the liver can start in the liver. It is then called primary liver cancer. Or cancer can spread to the liver from other places in the body. It is then called secondary liver cancer. Primary liver cancer is the most common solid tumor worldwide. In North America and Europe, secondary liver cancer occurs much more frequently than primary liver cancer. The liver is the most common organ to which cancer spreads.

The two major risk factors for primary liver cancer are:

• Persistent hepatitis B and C
  People who never completely recover from hepatitis B or C infections have constant liver inflammation.
• Cirrhosis
  In North America and Europe, the most common causes of cirrhosis (scarring of liver cells) are hepatitis C and drinking too much alcohol.

It is more likely that your colleague had secondary liver cancer. Secondary liver cancers are defined by the organ where the cancer began. For example, doctors call cancer that started in the lung and spread to the liver "metastatic lung cancer with liver involvement." Many different types of cancer spread to the liver. So cigarette use can increase the risk of developing for lung, pancreas, bladder or other smoking related cancers.

When a cancer spreads to the liver from somewhere else, the cancer cells are the same in both places. In people with secondary liver cancer, doctors treat them for the original site of the cancer. So, metastatic lung cancer that has spread to the liver would be treated as lung cancer, not liver cancer.