What is the difference between endovascular interventions for liver cancer and lung cancer?

  During my consultation, I found that with the increase of information technology, many patients are now well aware of the modalities, effects and contents of interventional treatment; the main ways of understanding are coronary angioplasty (mainly stenting) and endovascular interventional treatment for liver cancer. But why is endovascular intervention for liver cancer more “well-known” than that for lung cancer? As two of the best malignant tumors in China and the world: liver cancer and lung cancer, why is the popularity of endovascular interventions so different?  In fact, the intravascular interventions for malignant tumors are basically the same, mainly including vascular chemical perfusion (directly injecting chemical drugs into tumor vessels to increase blood concentration and anti-cancer effect), vascular embolization (embolizing tumor vessels to make them ischemic, directly anti-cancer and inhibit tumor growth through physiological and anatomical pathways) and chemical embolization (combining the above two functions and (increase the action time and effect of anti-cancer drugs with tumor).  2. Tumor artery blood supply: In order to meet its rapid growth (already uncontrolled growth under the failure of various inhibitory mechanisms of human body), tumor tissues are generally supplied by oxygen-rich body circulation, which is commonly known as artery, so liver cancer is mainly supplied by liver artery, while lung cancer is supplied by bronchial artery. Patients may ask why liver cancer is hepatic artery and lung cancer is bronchial artery, why not pulmonary artery? The blood flowing from the pulmonary artery is venous blood, which is collected by the right heart from the whole body and pumped to the lung tissue to maintain the normal oxygen demand of the body through the oxygenation exchange of the pulmonary vascular bed-respiratory system. The bronchial artery is the high oxygen supply blood vessel (both nutrient vessel) of the lung-bronchus, therefore, it is the main blood supply vessel of lung cancer. Therefore, interventional treatment of lung cancer via bronchial artery has obvious short- and medium-term efficacy.  3. Pulmonary artery blood supply of lung cancer: The blood supply of lung cancer has been debated in the last century, and it is believed that the pulmonary artery with venous blood can also be involved in blood supply. Therefore, a large number of clinical researchers have conducted a lot of research on this issue, and the current conclusion is that the pulmonary artery is not involved in the blood supply of lung cancer.  4. Multi-target arterial blood supply and collateral blood supply in lung cancer: lung cancer can occur in the trachea (mainly supplied by the left and right main six arteries), bronchi (can be supplied by one to four bronchial arteries) and alveoli (besides the main bronchial arteries, it can be supplied by other vessels depending on the location); while liver cancer is mainly supplied by the hepatic artery; and the vascular diameter of bronchial artery is very different from that of hepatic artery. Therefore, endovascular intervention in liver is relatively simple, while lung cancer is more difficult. After tumor vascular embolization, hepatocellular carcinoma has few collateral blood supply except for the subphrenic artery; whereas lung cancer can be supplied by intercostal artery, internal thoracic artery, intrinsic esophageal artery and other vessels.  5. Maintenance of organ function and surgical status: Surgery is currently recognized as the first choice for the treatment of malignant tumors. The overall organ function maintenance of the lung is better than that of the liver. Although lung has important oxygen exchange respiratory function, surgery is very safe under the premise of ensuring lung function (one lung can be removed in whole); while liver has important detoxification function, and liver cancer patients are mostly combined with cirrhosis and liver insufficiency, so surgery is severely restricted at this time.  6. Comprehensive anti-tumor problem: Comprehensive anti-tumor treatment includes chemotherapy (chemotherapy), radiation therapy (radiotherapy) and others. At present, with the rise of gene therapy, targeted drug therapy for various malignant tumors is very popular, especially for lung cancer, and has achieved certain efficacy. Radiotherapy has an important position in the treatment of lung cancer because the lung tissue itself filters low effective anti-tumor radiation, while allowing the rays to effectively reach the irradiated tumor tissue. Chemotherapy (chemotherapy) is still the main non-surgical treatment for lung cancer. Why non-interventional treatments (such as targeted) are so actively used in the treatment of lung cancer, and why interventional treatments are still predominant in liver cancer. It can be understood according to points 2 to 5 in this paper.   (4) actively combine other treatment modalities, such as radiotherapy and targeted therapy; the advantages of radiotherapy for lung cancer have been illustrated. When other treatments are ineffective and economic conditions allow, targeted therapy can be considered (I believe that gene therapy is the fundamental way to solve malignant tumors in the future).  (5) With the maturity and perfection of gene therapy, intravascular interventional gene therapy is still an extremely important project.