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Regional Cancer Therapy
The central goal of cancer treatment is to stop the uncontrolled growth of a tumor. The term interventional describes treatments performed by inserting needles or long, thin tubes called catheters into the body through tiny incisions in the skin. Interventional therapies used to treat cancer include chemoembolization, ablation, and brachytherapy.
The interventional radiology services of Interventional Radiology Clinic of South Texas provides you and your physician with the highest standard in image-guided, minimally invasive, diagnostic and therapeutic procedures. Our outstanding group of physicians are dedicated to providing the very latest in image-guided minimally invasive oncology procedures with added emphasis to compassionate patient care.
Click here to learn more about Liver Cancer Treatment
Chemoembolization of the Liver
Chemoembolization of the Liver is a minimally invasive therapy that allows our interventional radiologists to give high doses of cancer drugs mixed with a sterile oil substance directly into liver tumors using tiny tubes introduced through a small nick at the top of the leg. After the drug mixture is injected, tiny gelatin beads are injected through the tube that stop the blood flow to the tumor, robbing it of oxygen supply while exposing the rest of the body to a minimum of the anti-cancer drugs.
The liver is unusual in that blood supply to the liver involves 2 major vessels, the hepatic artery and the portal vein. Normal liver tissue gets most of its blood from the portal vein, while tumors in the liver get most of the blood from the hepatic artery. Chemoembolization takes advantage of this dual blood supply. We can put a tube into the hepatic artery (usually trough a small nick at the top of the leg), and inject a mixture of vessel blocking agents and cancer drugs directly into the tumor arteries taking away the tumor's oxygen and nutrition supply while exposing it to a very high dose of anti-cancer drug. All this is possible while causing relatively little injury to the surrounding liver.
While this is not a cure, in several types of liver tumors it can prolong life. Patients are generally in the hospital for 2 to 3 days.
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