Posted on 01/23/2023 3:35:41 PM PST by ConservativeMind
A study on tri-modality therapy (START-FIT)has found that nearly 50% of patients with inoperable locally advanced liver cancer, can be cured through this innovative approach.
Liver cancer is the sixth most common cancer globally with more than 900,000 new cases every year and is the third leading cause of cancer-related mortality. However, only 30% is eligible for curative treatment, while the rest could solely be managed with non-curative option due to large tumor size, or vascular invasion etc. The research team focused on these 70% inoperable cases and developed a new treatment modality to improve their chance of cure.
A total of 33 patients were screened and enrolled in this treatment method from March 2019 to January 2021, for tumor diameter ranging from 5 to 17.5cm. 64% patients had tumors with major vascular invasion that precluded them from curative surgical procedure.
The research team developed a new approach termed "Reduce and Remove"—a tri-modality therapy (START-FIT) for these 33 patients. Patients would receive Transarterial Chemoembolisation (TACE) on day 1 for local tumor control, followed by Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy (SBRT) on day 28, and then Immunotherapy administered 14 days following SBRT and every 2 weeks thereafter. In brief, this tri-modality approach is to downstage the tumor status to a level amenable to surgical intervention in order to achieve a cure for the liver cancer.
After this novel tri-modality therapy, 55% (18 patients) became suitable to receive curative surgery, of which 4 patients (12%) had undergone operation, and 14 patients (42%) had complete necrotic tumors who chose to keep close monitoring with regular scans. After up to 2.5 years of follow-up, two-year survival among these patients exceeded 90%, with only mild side-effects experienced throughout the whole treatment process.
(Excerpt) Read more at medicalxpress.com ...
More data needed?
Is this the Y90 procedure?
Ping
Bladder cancer is the 6th most common. Liver cancer is the 8th.
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/what-are-the-most-common-types-of-cancers#ranking
Not bile duct, but maybe relevant anyway?
Thank you. I forwarded the article to him.
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