The University Hospital Southampton has developed an innovative procedure to treat liver cancer and liver mets successfully. Liver cancer is one of the most notorious and hard-to-treat cancers with only 35% survival rate even if it is localized. If this procedure is approved and allowed for mass application, it can save the lives of millions of people worldwide, who are newly diagnosed and those falling prey to the disease. “It would definitely be a breakthrough for liver cancer treatment and across the globe”, an eminent oncologist from the City of Joy sounds hopeful.
What is New?
The procedure involves two small balloons that supply the drugs directly into liver while diverting blood past the organ. In other words, this procedure actually baths liver with the chemotherapy drugs for the best possible outcome.
This technique is called chemosaturation therapy. The procedure allows the doctors to apply a heavy dosage of chemotherapy drugs to destroy the malignant cells as it won’t enter the bloodstream and damage the healthy cells.
As soon as the drug is delivered to liver, blood is drained out from the organ and cleansed via a machine before retransferring it to the patient.
Dr. Stedman, who is a consultant radiologist at the hospital, says his team has already performed 300 procedures in 100 cancer patients with ocular melanoma that has metastasized to liver.
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Clinical Trials
So far, the procedure has applied on 100 patients with liver meta (i.e. their cancer has spread to liver) with successful results in almost 90% of patients. More research and clinical trials are needed to figure out its effectiveness in a large group of people before it gets a green signal for mass application. But if everything goes smoothly, it will definitely be a big achievement and will stir revolution in affordable and best cancer care Kolkata.
The team has published their finding in Melanoma Research. They claim that after the procedure, liver cancer was controlled in 88.9% of the patients, with 30% surviving after two years and 62% surviving for one year.
The outlook for cancer patients with liver mets is very poor as standard chemotherapy does more damages than doing any good. This application will hopefully extend the lifespan and improve the quality of life for the liver cancer patients and those with liver mets.
Cancer research and clinical trials require huge funding. It’s important for common people to help generously towards the cause for a cure.
