A group of experts from Northwestern University recently published their latest findings in the Journal of Hepatology, the leading journal for liver disease. They demonstrated through a time-dependent analysis of liver volume changes after radiological hepatectomy that radiological hepatectomy with yttrium 90 microspheres induced corresponding changes in liver volume, while possibly controlling liver tumor growth and limiting tumor progression in the untreated lobe. They treated 83 patients with single lobe tumors in the right lobe of the liver, including 67 cases of hepatocellular hepatocellular carcinoma, 8 cases of cholangiocellular hepatocellular carcinoma, and 8 cases of liver metastases from colorectal cancer, all of whom underwent radioactive lobectomy using yttrium 90. The patients’ total liver volume, lobe parenchyma and tumor volume, expected postoperative liver volume residual rate and expected percentage increase in postoperative liver volume residual rate were dynamically evaluated using CT or MRI before and after radioactive lobectomy. As a result, right lobe atrophy and left lobe hypertrophy were observed after 1 month of Yttrium 90 treatment, and the same results were consistently observed at follow-up. 9 months later, the median percentage increase in expected postoperative liver volume remaining reached 45%. The median maximum value of the expected percentage increase in postoperative liver volume remaining was 26%. Portal vein thrombosis was associated with the expected percentage increase in postoperative liver volume remaining. 5 patients underwent successful right hepatic lobectomy and 6 patients with hepatocellular liver cancer underwent liver transplantation. It is concluded that yttrium 90 radioactive lobectomy is a safe and effective method to stimulate lobar hyperplasia to increase the expected postoperative liver volume residual rate. With proper case selection and treatment, the therapy is comparable to the change in liver volume induced by portal vein embolization therapy. This new technique is particularly suitable as a transitional measure for those patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma seeking second-stage surgery.