If liver cancer is advanced when it is first diagnosed or returns after initial treatment, your doctor will discuss treatment options to help control the cancer’s spread and relieve symptoms.
Palliative treatment helps to improve people’s quality of life by managing the symptoms of cancer when a cure is not possible. It is best thought of as supportive care. Many people think that palliative treatment is for people at the end of their life, but it may help at any stage of advanced liver cancer. It is about living as long as possible in the most satisfying way you can.
Treatment may include radiation therapy; pain management; drainage of fluid (ascites); or insertion of a stent in the bile duct to relieve jaundice.
Palliative treatment is one aspect of palliative care, in which a team of health professionals aims to meet your physical, emotional, cultural, social and spiritual needs. The team also supports families and carers.
For more on this, see Palliative care and Living with advanced cancer.
I’d like people with advanced cancer to know that there are a myriad of services. You only have to ask; you are not alone.
Pat
→ READ MORE: Managing symptoms of primary liver cancer
Video: What is palliative care?
Watch this video to see how palliative treatment aims to manage symptoms and improve people’s quality of life without trying to cure the disease.
More resources
A/Prof Simone Strasser, Hepatologist, AW Morrow Gastroenterology and Liver Centre, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and The University of Sydney, NSW (clinical update); A/Prof Siddhartha Baxi, Radiation Oncologist and Medical Director, GenesisCare, Gold Coast, QLD (clinical update); Prof Katherine Clark, Clinical Director of Palliative Care, NSLHD Supportive and Palliative Care Network, Northern Sydney Cancer Centre, Royal North Shore Hospital, NSW; Anne Dowling, Hepatoma Clinical Nurse Consultant and Liver Transplant Coordinator, Austin Health, VIC; A/Prof Koroush Haghighi, Liver, Pancreas and Upper Gastrointestinal Surgeon, Prince of Wales and St Vincent’s Hospitals, NSW; Karen Hall, 131120 Consultant, Cancer Council SA; Dr Brett Knowles, Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary and General Surgeon, Royal Melbourne Hospital, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and St Vincent’s Hospital, VIC; Lina Sharma, Consumer; David Thomas, Consumer; Clinical A/Prof Michael Wallace, Department of Hepatology and Western Australian Liver Transplant Service, Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital Medical School, The University of Western Australia, WA; Prof Desmond Yip, Clinical Director, Department of Medical Oncology, The Canberra Hospital, ACT.
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