New treatment for liver cancer

A new treatment combining chemotherapy and heat has increased treatment options for mid and final-stage liver cancer patients.

Patients are able to receive 10 times more chemotherapy drugs per treatment under the new regime, which the University of Hong Kong has helped develop.

Chemotherapy is the usual treatment for liver cancer, especially for large tumours which cannot be removed surgically. But because chemotherapy drugs can kill healthy cells as well as cancerous ones, doctors are restricted in the dosage amounts they can use at any one time on a patient.

The new treatment is less toxic because the drug passes through fewer areas of the body after it is administered by injection.

Also, the treatment uses a new drug, which is heat sensitive and only works at a minimum temperature of 42 degrees Celsius. A radiofrequency gun is used to heat specific parts of the body which contain cancer cells, thus activating the drug in that area only.

Of seven Queen Mary Hospital patients recruited into the first phase of trials in 2006, three have survived until now.

That constituted a three-year survival rate of about 30 per cent of patients, higher than that for traditional chemotherapy, said university department of surgery professor Poon Tung-ping, who led the study.

One month after a 30-minute treatment, 87.5 per cent of the 28 tumours involved disappeared, Poon said. That was higher than the 10 per cent achieved by chemotherapy formerly.

The new treatment also had fewer side effects than traditional methods, which could cause severe bleeding, heart failure and kidney failure, Poon said. However, patients receiving the new treatment would lose hair and experience a temporary decrease in white blood cells.

The treatment could benefit up to 30 per cent of liver cancer patients in the city, he said. It was especially useful for those whose tumours measured between 3 centimetres and 7cm and could not be operated on.

A 65-year-old man is one of the trial patients. He was diagnosed with liver cancer in 2004 and was recruited into the programme in 2006. Nearly four years later, he says: "I should have died but I did not. I am still enjoying life, always travelling to the mainland."

The study, a collaboration with the US National Cancer Institute, is in its third phase involving 15 more Hong Kong patients. Poon said he expected results to be published in three years.

Source: www.scmp.com