Liver Cancer Treatment Shows Promise

(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- A new liver cancer treatment is showing promise in extending the lives of patients who have the deadly disease.

Every year, 18,500 new cases of liver cancer are diagnosed. The disease is twice as common in men as in woman and occurs most often in those who have the liver disease cirrhosis. About half of patients with primary liver cancer die because their tumor has progressed and 40 percent die from advancing cirrhosis and the resulting liver failure.

A new interventional radiology treatment combines the radioactive isotope Y-90 with microspheres to deliver radiation to tumors, while sparing healthy cells. Each microsphere is about the five red blood cells in width. They are delivered to the tumor through a catheter in the groin that's threaded into the artery supplying it.

In a study of 291 patients, most benefitted from the Y-90 treatment. It took a median of 7.9 months for the tumors to regrow after treatment, and some patients survived more than 20 months, which researchers say are very promising numbers.

"This is encouraging news for liver cancer patients, especially those who also have blockage in the portal vein," Riad Salem, M.D., MBA, director of interventional oncology at the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, Ill., was quoted as saying. "While patients aren't cured, their lives are being extended and their quality of life is improving with yttrium-90 microsphere treatment."

Dr. Salem says another benefit of the treatment is that it doesn't make patients feel as sick or suffer other side effects typical to standard treatments. 

Source: Society of Interventional Radiology's 35th Annual Scientific Meeting, March 13-18, Tampa, Fla.