The incidence and death of tumors in China is increasing year by year. The World Health Organization recently released a report stating that in 2012, there were 2.2 million cancer deaths in China, and on average, one out of every four deaths was due to cancer. Early detection and early surgical removal is the first choice. However, some tumors may not be suitable for “one-size-fits-all” surgery due to factors such as old age, physical strength, and the risk of surgery when the tumor is too advanced. There are some non-operative therapies that you may want to try. There are many blood vessels around the tumor, which constantly provide nutritional source for the growth of tumor. If the blood supply is abundant, the growth will be more vigorous. If the blood supply is cut off, the tumor will stop growing or even shrink gradually if it is “starved” or even “shocked” by lack of blood. This is the purpose of embolization therapy. If the arteries leading to the tumor are found and blocked with an embolus, the tissue will stop growing due to the loss of blood flow and oxygen supply. This is actually similar to what we know as cardiac stenting intervention, but it is the opposite. Compared to other interventional therapies, embolization is relatively safe and conservative, with less trauma and fewer side effects. It is more suitable for advanced age and late inoperable cases, and can be done after resting for about six hours. Caution: Six hours of rest is required after embolization, during which extra care should be taken to avoid hematoma and other conditions. Radioactive Particle Implantation: Radiation therapy performed in vivo Traditional radiotherapy is to irradiate the tumor site from outside the body with the help of radiotherapy instrument focusing on the tumor site in vivo to achieve the purpose of crumpling and ablating the tumor. However, the radiation dose decays with the increase of distance and penetration of tissues, which means that normal tissues such as skin may be exposed to more radiation dose than tumor when irradiated in vitro, and therefore more damage. The number of radiation treatments may cause side effects such as skin lesions and radiation pneumonia. The particle implantation therapy avoids this potential problem. “It’s considered brachytherapy. The particles with radioactive effect are implanted directly inside the tumor, lined up and focused on this small area of the tumor for radiotherapy, which is more targeted.” Prof. Wang Hongwu said that this therapy can enhance the local radiation dose of the tumor, but can also ensure that the normal tissues around the tumor are subjected to the least amount, which eventually allows the tumor to slowly shrink. It is a good palliative treatment for unresectable advanced tumors such as head and neck cancer, pancreatic cancer, prostate cancer, etc., relieving pain and prolonging survival time, with a lower rate of complications. Caution: The half-life of radioactive particles is 59 days. Since radioactive particles have a certain radiation effect on people around you, you need to keep a distance of about one meter from others after surgery. Ar-He knife treatment: freezing and ablation will destroy the tumor in situ Ar-He knife is a green tumor treatment that has been carried out more often in recent years. The principle is to use argon as the cold medium and helium as the heat medium. The argon gas can freeze the diseased tissue to -120℃~-165℃ within ten seconds by rapid ultra-low temperature cooling, and the helium can thaw and warm up rapidly. The cryoprobe used in argon helium knife is a hollow puncture needle. Argon and helium gas directly intervene in the tumor through the puncture needle to stimulate the tumor tissue to necrosis in place and stop growing with the help of hot and cold warming, and to achieve the purpose of gradual shrinkage. Currently argon helium knife has been widely used in the treatment of systemic solid tumors. It has obvious pain-relieving effect on primary and metastatic bone tumors, and can also preserve limb and joint functions with light trauma and low recurrence rate. Argon-helium targeted treatment of head and facial tumors also has simple operation, no incision, high tumor inactivation rate, low tumor residual rate, etc. It can also inactivate nerves and enhance pain relief. In addition, percutaneous puncture argon helium knife treatment for liver cancer has become an effective treatment for liver cancer, which can shrink the tumor and have good pain relief effect at the same time. Caution: Ar-He knife is more suitable for solid tumors such as lung cancer and liver cancer, but generally not for cavity organ tumors such as stomach cancer, intestinal cancer and superficial tumors such as thyroid cancer.