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Page: << Prev | 1 | 2 "You never know how much of the tumor you burned," Geschwind says. "If you leave a little bit of the tumor behind, it returns with a vengeance."
In the new study, the researchers from University Hospital in Frankfurt recruited 162 liver cancer patients whose tumors were large and the result of cancer that had spread from elsewhere in the body. The doctors tried to shrink the tumors and then, if possible, destroy them with lasers.
All the patients had a treatment called chemoembolization to shrink the tumors. "We inject the chemotherapy right into the tumor cells, and then cut off the oxygen supply by blocking the blood flow," says Susman, who uses that approach to treat his patients.
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In the new study, the tumors shrunk in more than half of the patients. Doctors went on to treat their tumors by burning them with lasers. Susman uses a similar approach, utilizing radio-frequency waves instead of lasers.
"I treat [the tumor] from the inside first to hamper its defenses and shrink it down, so that I can use a device to burn it away and completely eradicate it. It is the medical equivalent of a smart bomb," he says.
Blocking blood flow to the tumor helps in the burning process, Susman adds. "The blood supply works like the radiator in your car, pulling heat away. When we block the blood supply you no longer have the radiator circulating. You heat the tumor more easily because the heat doesn't go away."
The patients who underwent the combination treatment lived for a median of 26.2 months, while the other patients who only received the chemoembolization lived a median of 12.8 months.
Those survival rates may seem low, Susman says, but they'd be higher in patients with smaller tumors. Also, the treatment lets patients avoid surgical removal of tumors, which requires months of recovery time and poses great risks, he adds.
The German researchers say the dual treatment has applications for lung, bone and lymph node tumors as well.
More information
To learn more about liver cancer, visit the American Cancer Society (www.cancer.org) and the National Cancer Institute (www.cancer.gov). Page: << Prev | 1 | 2
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