The results revealed that bathing tumor-ridden livers in chemotherapy increases the length of time certain cancer patients survive without progression of the disease.
Patients with melanoma that had spread to the liver who underwent percutaneous hepatic perfusion (PHP) survived four times longer before the disease progressed, compared to patients who did not receive the treatment, according to the study.
In PHP chemotherapy will be delivered through an arterial catheter threaded via the blood vessels to the liver.
Two balloons are inflated in the vena cava, above and below the liver to isolate the chemotherapy. This chemotherapy-saturated blood is then cleansed by a series of filters and returned to the body.
Swedish Medical Center, Denver, interventional radiologist and investigator of the study Charles Nutting said the minimally invasive method isolates the drug so it is contained within the liver, where tumors receive up to 100 times the dose they would get through systemic chemotherapy.
"There are very limited therapeutic options for these patients. This minimally invasive therapy technology could eventually be used to treat other liver cancers when options are limited," Nutting said.
The results were presented at the 3rd annual Symposium on Clinical Interventional Oncology (CIO), in collaboration with the International Symposium on Endovascular Therapy (ISET).