At different stages of liver cancer, patients experience different pain.
Early stage of liver cancer
Early stages of liver cancer are relatively insidious and rarely have symptoms. By the time patients develop obvious signs and symptoms, they have often progressed to a more serious stage.
Middle to late stage liver cancer
Most patients with mid- to late-stage liver cancer have pain in the liver area as the main symptom, with an incidence of about 80%.
The pain in the liver area is usually located in the right side of the rib cage or under the glabella, and is mostly persistent and vague or distending in nature, mainly due to the rapid increase of the tumor pulling the local liver envelope, and the pain can be severe and stabbing in the later stages.
Specific pain manifestations
Some hepatocellular carcinomas located in special areas may have special pain manifestations:
- Hepatocellular carcinoma in the left lobe may present as upper middle abdominal pain, which is often misdiagnosed as “stomach disease”;
- Hepatocellular carcinoma located in the right lobe of the liver near the diaphragm is often misdiagnosed as “frozen shoulder” because of the involvement of the diaphragm, causing involvement pain in the right shoulder;
- When the liver cancer tumor metastasizes to the abdominal lymph nodes, it may manifest as low back pain.
Notably, when the tumor ruptures and bleeds, it may manifest as sudden severe pain in the liver area, which may be accompanied by dizziness, palpitations, black dawn, decreased urine output, and other signs of post-bleeding hypovolemia, requiring timely treatment.