Mindfulness eases pain and anxiety for liver cancer patients after TACE

Mindfulness-based stress reduction was linked to lower pain, less anxiety and fewer post-embolization syndrome cases in people with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma after transarterial chemoembolization. The retrospective study, published June 29, 2026 in PLOS One as article e0352434, compared standard perioperative care with standard care plus MBSR in patients undergoing TACE.

Hepatocellular carcinoma is the most common type of primary liver cancer, accounting for about 80% to 90% of cases, and liver cancer remains a major global cause of cancer death. TACE is a standard locoregional therapy for unresectable HCC and is built into treatment frameworks used by the European Association for the Study of the Liver, the Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer system and the American Association for the Study of Liver Disease. It also carries a familiar downside: post-embolization syndrome, a complication often marked by pain, fever, nausea and other systemic symptoms, which the study assessed 72 hours after the procedure.

The research team measured pain with the numerical rating scale, anxiety and depression with the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, and self-care efficacy with the Strategies Used by People to Promote Health scale. Patients who received mindfulness alongside routine care had significantly lower postoperative pain scores at all measured time points, used fewer or less intense analgesic medications, reported lower anxiety and depression scores than patients in standard care alone, and scored higher on SUPPH.

The mindfulness group had a lower incidence of post-embolization syndrome and a shorter hospital stay, and logistic regression found MBSR was independently associated with reduced PES risk, with an odds ratio of 0.55 and a 95% confidence interval of 0.31 to 0.96. Because the design was retrospective, the study showed association rather than causation.