There are many methods, it depends on the patient which method is suitable?
Surgical treatment alone
Indications: Radical treatment for early, intermediate and limited tumors, palliative treatment for advanced tumors.
Advantages: Surgery is a mechanical means to temporarily remove large tumors, without the problems of chemotherapy resistance and radiation resistance. Disadvantages: It is more invasive, difficult to operate in some areas, ineffective for subclinical metastases, and has certain limitations in treatment, cannot completely destroy cancer cells, and the cancer cells will grow again within a certain period of time.
Interventional vascular embolization treatment alone
Indications: <70% of liver volume, palliative treatment of hepatic function compensated tumor.
Advantages: the procedure is minimally invasive, repeatable, and can be done once a week for huge tumors, with fast postoperative recovery.
Disadvantages: It is difficult to completely destroy cancer cells, and the tumor continues to grow within a certain period of time.
Radiofrequency ablation therapy alone
Indications: Radical treatment of early, intermediate and limited solid tumors, and tumor reduction treatment of advanced tumors.
Advantages: CT or B ultrasound guidance, accurate localization, local anesthesia. It is also effective for metastatic tumors and safer than surgery for tumors near intrahepatic vessels. It can ablate multiple tumors in different liver lobes at one time, with little trauma, and can be active 6 hours after surgery, with fast recovery of liver function. It is an important means of treating cancer, and the smaller the tumor, the better the effect.
Disadvantages: 1. After necrosis of large tumors, malabsorption of necrotic tissues may cause infection, which requires external drainage treatment.
2. Long treatment period for large tumors, usually takes 2 to 3 months, if not combined with embolization, the effect is affected by slow warming during surgery.
Chemotherapy
Indications: Post-surgical patients; intermediate and advanced cancer; metastatic cancer; subclinical metastases.
Advantages: Chemotherapy is treatment with chemicals, these antitumor drugs can be dispersed to the whole body quickly after entering the body, which can kill both local cancer cells and metastatic cancer cells, it is a systemic therapeutic, more inhibit tumor growth and spread, and have temporary control effect on primary foci, metastatic foci and subclinical metastases.
Disadvantages: 1. Chemical drugs are not specific to kill cancer cells, and killing cancer cells also kills normal cells, excessive chemotherapy will shorten patients’ survival time.
2. Some tumors are not sensitive to drugs, so chemotherapy has no clinical value.
3. Chemotherapy cannot completely kill all cancer cells in the body, and cancer cells will recur or metastasize within a certain period of time.
Radiotherapy
Indications: Regional sensitive cancer.
Advantages: Using the focal point crossed by multiple beams of radiation to cause high energy to kill cancer cells, radiation kills mitotic cells, which is an important means of treating cancer and can produce temporary control effect for many cancers.
Disadvantages: 1. Radiation therapy equipment is expensive and the treatment cost is high.
2. Long radiation treatment period, usually 1 to 2 months.
3. Radiation complications are more frequent and may even cause partial loss of function.
4. The effect of radiation therapy is not complete, and it cannot completely eradicate cancer cells, which will grow again within a certain period of time.
At present, the combination of embolization + radiofrequency + Licartin is mostly used.