What is liver cancer intervention?

  China is a large country with hepatitis and liver cancer, and the number of liver cancer cases exceeds 300,000 every year. Most of the patients are already in the middle and late stages when they are found, and only less than 20% of them have the chance of surgical resection. This method is mainly used to increase the concentration of chemotherapeutic drugs in local tissues through catheter infusion while blocking the blood supplying arteries to the tumor, resulting in tumor necrosis.  The advantages of transarterial chemoembolization are: 1. The local drug concentration of tumor is tens of times higher than that of systemic chemotherapy during arterial chemotherapy, and the sensitivity of the drug is increased while blocking the blood supply to the tumor, so the two-pronged approach achieves better therapeutic effects. 2. It can also be performed on old and weak people and those with certain diseases.3. The cost is relatively low.4. It can be repeatedly performed, and the diagnostic imaging is clear and easy to compare before and after.5.  The following is a brief introduction of this method through a recent treatment case in our hospital: the patient is a 42-year-old male, a huge occupying lesion in the right lobe of liver was found on physical examination, with a past history of hepatitis and cirrhosis, diagnosed as giant hepatocellular carcinoma, and was given transarterial embolization chemotherapy after being admitted to our hospital, which has achieved satisfactory results. He is now living with tumor for 1 year and 3 months with good general condition. The specific treatment results are shown as follows: Figure 1 The largest hypodense lesion in the right lobe of the liver is seen in CT scan of the liver, which is a giant hepatocellular carcinoma, as shown by the arrow. Figure 2 Hepatic arteriogram shows a huge dense area with rich blood supply in the right lobe of the liver, surrounded by tumor supplying arteries, which is consistent with the CT findings, and the arrow indicates a thick and tortuous tumor supplying artery. Figure 3 The lesion area was relief-like change after transcatheter chemoembolization, and the tumor blood supply largely disappeared after embolization. Figure 4 CT scan shows that the cancerous lesion is filled with dense material, which is iodinated oil particles mixed with chemotherapeutic drugs used during embolization. This treatment is also suitable for preoperative treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma and postoperative recurrence. Transarterial chemoembolization is also suitable for the treatment of other malignant tumors in the liver, such as liver metastases, sarcomas and hepatoblastomas, while for benign intrahepatic lesions such as hepatic hemangiomas, arterial embolization has become the preferred clinical treatment.