Newsclips
Researchers are starting trial to test radioembolization as treatment for liver cancer.
Medical News Today (2/13) reported that Thomas Jefferson University Hospital's Kimmel Cancer Center is starting "an 18-month study of" radioembolization for the treatment of liver cancer. The treatment "entails injecting tiny beads that emit small amounts of radiation into the liver's main artery while also blocking the blood supply feeding the cancer's growth." While radioembolization is "approved by the...Food and Drug Administration for use in inoperable liver cancer," this study will be the first time that "the...technology, called SIR-Spheres microspheres, which is FDA-approved for treating colon cancer that has spread to the liver, is being studied in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma, or primary liver cancer." The study will involve "10 patients initially, and perhaps as many as 40 altogether."
Chemotherapy may improve progression-free survival in colorectal liver metastases, study indicates.
MedPage Today (3/21, Phend) reported that "[p]erioperative chemotherapy may improve progression-free survival for patients with resectable liver metastases from colorectal cancer," according to a study published in the Mar. 22 issue of The Lancet. In the study, researchers examined "364 patients with histologically proven colorectal cancer and up to four liver metastases." Participants were randomized "to receive surgery alone or six cycles of the FOLFOX4 regimen before and after surgery. Chemotherapy consisted of leucovorin (Wellcovorin) at 200 mg/m2/day followed by bolus fluorouracil (Adrucil) at 400 mg/m2/day and a 22-hour infusion of fluorouracil at 600 mg/m2/day on days one and two, and oxaliplatin 85 mg/m on day one." The researchers found that "[t]he addition of oxaliplatin (Eloxatin)-based chemotherapy tended to improve three-year progression-free survival by 21 percent compared with surgery alone, although this advantage in the primary intent-to-treat analysis missed significance (P=0.058 versus the required P=0.0434)." Still, Scott Kopetz, M.D., and Jean-Nicolas Vauthey, M.D., of the University of Texas, wrote, in an editorial accompanying the study that "perioperative chemotherapy can be recommended for respectable liver metastases."
