An Innovative New Approach to Managing Liver Cancers

Houston Methodist researchers have found an innovative approach to liver cancer management that may bring improvements in the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). HCC – which accounts for 850,000 new cases each year and greater than 800,000 deaths – is the sixth most common malignancy worldwide and the third leading cause of cancer-related mortality. Typically, treatment of early HCC includes surgical resection, liver transplantation or local ablation therapy. However, most patients are diagnosed with advanced HCC and hence are not suitable for these curative treatment options. Several hepatology societies including the European Association for the Study of the Liver and the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases recognize transarterial chemoembolization (TACE) as the standard of care in the treatment of early to intermediate HCC. TACE is a minimally invasive, image-guided, interventional radiology procedure that delivers chemotherapy to the blood vessels supplying the liver tumor. Despite being the recommended treatment modality by most clinical practice guidelines, TACE procedures are required multiple times in a single patient in some cases owing to large tumor volumes and high tumor progression rates – a state referred to as "TACE refractory liver cancer".