Ascites: Understanding Causes, Diagnosis, and Treatment

Question
A friend of mine is suffering from severe ascites.  Every three to four weeks she has had to have six or seven litres drained from her upper abdomen.  She is obviously under the care of a hospital consultant and has undergone various tests, including a laparoscopy and CT scan, but as yet her doctors have been unable to find the cause or offer a diagnosis.  My friend is worried that she has cancer as she has a family history (both parents died of cancer), however apparently her blood work and tests have not shown anything abnormal.  She is desperately unhappy and is at a loss to know what to do.  There must be an expert somewhere in the world who would know what specific tests to run and what to look for.  Can you point me in the right direction please?

Answer
Well, in order to do this you have to tell me what has been done in her case in order to find the reason for this. Cancer is one of the obvious reasons for this condition (there are others too) so I'm sure her drs. have looked into that. But if you can tell me what has been done I may be able to spot something that has been missed and we avoid doing the same things over again in vain.