Principles and regimens for traditional Chinese medicine diagnosis and treatment of primary liver cancer

Abstract

Treatment regimens for primary liver cancer mainly include surgical resection, liver transplantation, local treatment, and systemic treatment, but there are still problems such as easy metastasis, easy recurrence, and poor prognosis. Most patients are already in the advanced stage at the time of diagnosis and thus lose the opportunity for surgery and require multidisciplinary combined treatment. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has unique advantages in the treatment of primary liver cancer and can exert a synergistic effect in collaboration with different Western medicine treatment methods. This article establishes TCM treatment regimens based on the different clinical stages of primary liver cancer, i.e., surgical resection for early-stage liver cancer to strengthen vital Qi and prevent recurrence, minimally invasive treatment of middle-stage liver cancer to eliminate cancer toxicity and improve efficacy, and symptomatic treatment of advanced liver cancer to reduce pain and maintain quality of life.