Primary liver cancer (referred to as liver cancer) is one of the common malignant tumors in China, with more than 100,000 new patients each year and a population incidence rate of 23.7% per 100,000 people. Due to the insidious onset of liver cancer, most of the patients are already in the middle and late stages when they are diagnosed, coupled with the high rate of combined cirrhosis, low surgical resection rate and high recurrence rate after surgery, most of the patients with middle and late stage liver cancer need non-surgical treatment. Zhang Xuejun, Department of Interventional Radiology, People’s Hospital of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region
Among the non-surgical therapies with definite efficacy, interventional therapy, namely transcatheter hepatic artery infusion chemotherapy and embolization of tumor trophoblastic vessels, is preferred.
Transcatheter hepatic artery infusion chemotherapy and embolization have become a mature treatment method after more than 20 years of continuous development and improvement. The main steps are to puncture the femoral artery through the skin, insert the catheter into the tumor trophoblastic hepatic artery or its branches under DSA, and inject anti-tumor drugs or embolic agents to kill the tumor cells and block its blood supply.
The special anatomical and physiological location of liver makes it a common site of metastasis for malignant tumors, especially gastrointestinal tumors, lung cancer, kidney cancer, breast cancer and pelvic malignant tumors. In China, interventional treatment for metastatic liver cancer was carried out simultaneously with interventional treatment for primary liver cancer in the mid-1980s. At present, interventional treatment has also become one of the preferred methods for non-surgical treatment of metastatic liver cancer.