Beads Battle Liver Cancer
Chemotherapy can be an effective treatment for cancer patients, but it can leave people asking how well will it work? And how bad will side effects be? A new way to treat liver cancer brings positive answers to both those questions.
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Marilyn Routh and her husband Tommy were looking forward to retiring and spending time on their ranch.
Marilyn Routh
Cancer patient
"We were just all excited, couldn't wait. And, y'know, surprise, surprise, you have the big C. And it was like the whole world changed in one sentence."
Marilyn has liver cancer. Standard chemotherapy helped but left her sick in bed.
Then she learned of a new treatment called Selective Internal Radiation therapy. Doctor Robert Cirillo injects microscopic spheres that release radiation directly into the tumor.
Robert Cirillo, Jr., M.D.
Radiologist
Wake Forest University
Baptist Medical Center
Durham, NC
"Because these particles are so small, they only get trapped within the tumor, and then you won't cause the side effects that you normally get from chemotherapy because it's only going after the tumor itself and not the patient's normal liver."
Marilyn had flu-like side effects at first.
Marilyn Routh
"After that wore off, I felt Goood. I was ready to take on the world."
It worked on her cancer, too.
Her scans from before and after treatment tell a lot, but not as much as the joy of being with her family.
Marilyn also receives standard chemotherapy to fight cancer in her stomach and esophagus. Wake Forest University is one of 6 centers doing this treatment in the United States, and does more than any other center in the world.
BACKGROUND: According to the American Cancer Society, there will be about 17,300 new cases of primary liver cancer and bile duct cancer diagnosed in the United States during 2003. Of those, 11,700 will be men and 5,600 will be women. When compared to many other types of cancer, the number of people who develop liver cancer, and die from it, is rising. This cancer is about 10 times more common in developing countries in East Asia, Africa, and Asia. In many of these countries it is the most common type of cancer.
The liver is a pyramid shaped organ that is divided into right and left lobes, and receives blood from two sources unlike other organs. The hepatic artery supplies the liver with blood that is oxygen-rich and the portal vein carries nutrient-rich blood from the intestines to the liver. Individuals cannot live without a liver because it processes and stores many of the nutrients absorbed from the intestine necessary for the body to function. It also produces some of the clotting elements that prevent excess bleeding when an injury to the body occurs. The liver also secretes bile into the intestine to help absorb nutrients and helps remove toxic waste from the body. Since the liver is composed of several different types of cells, various types of tumors can form in the liver. These tumors have different causes and are treated differently.
TREATMENT: For inoperative liver cancers, selective internal radiation therapy is a new pioneering interventional radiation treatment. Microspheres, or beads, which contain the radioactive element called Yttrium-90, are delivered to the tumors in the liver by a catheter inserted into the femoral artery and directed to branches of the hepatic artery that supply blood to the tumor. Millions of these microspheres become trapped in the capillaries that surround the tumor and release radioactive therapy for several weeks into the tumor. Therefore, the tumor is aggravated and killed while the liver is safeguarded against further damage.
Yttrium-90 microspheres provide liver cancer patients a form of treatment that is different from other forms of radiation treatment such as external beam radiation. This form of therapy delivers higher doses of radiation to the tumor and it is less toxic than other therapies. Selective internal radiation therapy also causes fewer and milder symptoms associated with other radiation therapies. The procedure can be performed in less than one hour on an outpatient basis requiring a local anesthetic. Most patients go home the same day with no radiation risk to others. Currently, Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center is the only hospital in the southeast and one of only six institutions in the United States to offer selective radiation for liver cancer.
Other institutions include:
- The University of Maryland, College Park, MD
- Good Samaritan Hospital, Phoenix, AZ
- William Beaumont Hospital, Royal Oak, MI
- University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA
- Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia, PA
Outpatient Radiological Clinic
Wake Forest University
Baptist Medical Center
(877) 276-2888
Copyright © 2003 Ivanhoe Broadcast News, Inc.
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