Determinants of pain in advanced HCC patients recieving hepatic artery infusion chemotherapy

Purpose Hepatic arterial infusion chemotherapy (HAIC) is one of the options to treat unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The majority of HCC patients suffer great pain in the course of HAIC treatment. To improve the quality of life and the efficacy of HAIC treatment, the causes of pain, the choice of an analgesic regimen, and the relationship between pain and prognosis of HCC were analyzed. Methods A total of 376 HCC patients under HAIC in our hospital were recriuted between March 2017 and September 2019. Multivariate linear regression analysis (stepwise) was used to calculate the potential factors related to the severe pain in HCC patients under HAIC. Analgesics treatments were carried out based on the results of the visual analogue scale (VAS) score which was used to evaluate the pain. Results The mean value of the VAS score is 3.604, which indicates that the pain in most patients is mild and endurable. Intra-arterial lidocaine injection is an effective method in most patients (96%, 361 of 376), and the total score of VAS is reduced from 1355 to 195 following lidocaine injection. Multivariate analysis suggestes that oxaliplatin (OXA) preparation time, hepatic artery diameter and OXA manufacturers (R² = 0.859) are influential factors for pain scores. Conclusion This study demonstrates an effective way to systematically assess and ease pain in HCC patients with HAIC treatment. OXA preparation time, hepatic artery diameter, and OXA manufacturers are the potential influencing factors for pain. This work presented here will provide a detailed understanding of the clinical application of HAIC in advanced HCC patients.