Liver cancer is one of the most prevalent tumors in China, with insidious onset and lack of obvious clinical manifestations in early stage, we often call liver as “silent organ”. Patients with mid- to late-stage hepatocellular carcinoma mostly have pain as the first manifestation, with an incidence rate of more than 50%. Pain is a kind of reaction when the human body is stimulated by injury, and many diseases will have such a reaction. Besides bringing discomfort to the body, it can also bring psychological stress to the patient, which has a great impact on the treatment of the disease. So let’s take a look at those things about pain of liver cancer patients.
1.Pain location: The most common pain location of liver cancer patients is the liver area, which is located in the right rib area or under the prominence of the sword in our body.
2.Pain nature: Patients may experience right upper abdominal discomfort for a period of time before the pain. The pain usually appears as intermittent or persistent hidden pain, dull pain or stabbing pain, which can be aggravated when breathing.
3.Pain manifestations of liver cancer in different locations.
1）Patients with liver cancer located in the top of diaphragm of right lobe of liver —- may often experience radiating pain in right shoulder or right back.
(2) Patients with liver cancer located in the left lobe of the liver —- usually have distending pain in the middle and upper abdomen earlier, and occasionally may also have pain in the left quarter rib area or back.
3) Patients with hepatocellular carcinoma located in the deep part of the liver parenchyma —- usually rarely have pain.
4) Patients with hepatocellular carcinoma with severe cirrhosis —- may have dull pain or colic in the upper abdomen.
4) Life-threatening pain.
When the patient has hepatocellular carcinoma rupture or subperitoneal hemorrhage, the patient may have sudden severe pain in the liver area with tenderness in the liver area, followed by signs of peritoneal irritation (abdominal pressure pain, rebound pain and abdominal muscle tension), dizziness, panic, increased pulse rate, decreased blood pressure and other manifestations, or when there is bloody fluid in the abdominal puncture, it may be life-threatening. Timely resuscitation is needed.
5. Pain of related parts can also occur in liver cancer metastasis.
Liver cancer is easy to metastasize, and metastasis to different locations can lead to symptoms of corresponding parts, for example, metastasis to lung can lead to chest pain, metastasis to bone can lead to bone pain and other manifestations.
6.Non-drug methods to relieve pain:
When patients have pain symptoms, in addition to drug treatment, some non-drug treatments can also help patients improve their symptoms.
(1) Deep breathing: chest breathing can relieve abdominal pressure.
2）Comfortable lying position: When the patient is in pain, taking the affected side lying position or half lying position can help the patient to relieve the pain.
3）Diversion of attention: According to different preferences of the patients, throwing in their favor, such as listening to music, telling jokes, listening to comedy, etc., can divert the patients’ attention and distract them from the pain.
4) Reduce psychological pressure: Patients are prone to anxiety, depression and other emotions, these adverse emotions, easily aggravate the patient’s sensitivity to pain, family members need to comfort and encourage patients more, establish confidence in fighting the disease, relax the body, give moderate psychological suggestion, improve the patient’s pain threshold.
(5) Massage: It should be noted that massage must be gentle to avoid causing tumor rupture or metastasis.
In clinical work, it is easy to misdiagnose right shoulder pain caused by liver cancer as frozen shoulder, and right abdominal pain also needs to be distinguished from cholecystitis and gastritis. If liver disease patients have unexplained right shoulder pain and abdominal pain, they must pay attention to timely examination to buy more time for treatment.