Options for liver cancer treatment

  As the king of cancers, liver cancer is often found at an advanced stage and only about 20% of patients have the chance of surgical resection. With the development of technology, diversified and comprehensive treatments have become the main means of liver cancer treatment, bringing hope for liver cancer patients to improve their survival and quality of life, and even to be cured. But which of the many treatment methods is suitable for individual treatment? Patients often feel confused, afraid of delaying the treatment time and choosing the wrong treatment plan, which will affect the treatment effect.  At present, the main treatment methods for liver cancer are: surgical resection, hepatic artery chemoembolization, ablation therapy, particle inter-tissue implantation therapy, radiotherapy, targeted therapy, traditional Chinese medicine therapy and so on.  Surgery is the first choice for hepatocellular carcinoma treatment because of its precise efficacy and direct removal of the lesion, which theoretically achieves the purpose of radical cure. For single lesion whose site is at the outer edge of liver and easy to be completely resected by surgery, surgical treatment is recommended, and routine hepatic arteriography + perfusion chemotherapy is performed once in two weeks to one month after surgery to clear possible residual lesions, which can achieve better treatment effect. However, surgical treatment is not recommended for patients with difficult surgical resection, multiple, or intrahepatic dissemination, which may lead to accelerated disease progression.  Hepatic artery chemoembolization, as the first choice of non-surgical treatment, is a good means to control the progression of hepatocellular carcinoma by inactivating the tumor through local chemotherapy and embolizing the blood supply artery of the tumor. However, for patients with possible cure, hepatic artery chemoembolization alone is not enough. Studies have shown that the complete necrosis rate of hepatocellular carcinoma after hepatic artery chemoembolization alone is <30%. Therefore, hepatic artery chemoembolization can be used as a method to control tumor progression, but not as a means of radical cure. The surviving foci of tumor need to be detected according to MR examination, and targeted treatment with surgery or ablation or particle implantation is needed to obtain better treatment effect.  Ablation therapy and particle implantation are local treatment methods that can completely inactivate small hepatocellular carcinoma or the residual tumor foci after hepatic artery chemoembolization, which are comparable to surgery in terms of efficacy, with less damage, faster recovery and less limitation by the location of the foci. However, because of the limited scope of treatment, the efficacy is not good for large lesions, and needs to be performed in conjunction with hepatic artery chemoembolization.  Radiotherapy and gamma knife treatment are not the first choice for liver cancer treatment as second-line treatment. However, the efficacy of hepatic artery chemoembolization for inferior vena cava aneurysm, where surgery and hepatic artery chemoembolization are not effective, is worthy of recognition.  Chinese medicine, immunotherapy and the current hot targeted therapy are very helpful to improve the quality of survival and prolong survival, but they should not be the main treatment, and should not be put the cart before the horse.  For patients with combined portal vein aneurysm embolism, particle implantation and stent and particle strip implantation are the most effective treatments.  The above are personal opinions and purely for reference, hoping to provide some choice ideas for liver cancer patients.