Extend life for liver cancer patients

Primary liver cancer without intervention usually only lives for at most three months. Applying the technique of hepatic artery chemical button at Bach Mai Hospital, Hanoi, the patient lived for 18 months longer, significantly longer than other methods.

Ms. Tran Thi Le (57 years old, team 11, Cau Dien, Tu Liem, Hanoi) discovered liver cancer from June 2004, starting from September 2004 until now, has had three circuit nodes. Currently, Ms. Le still helps her grandchildren talk about food, markets (Photo: N.Hà, TTO) Associate Prof. Dr. Pham Minh Thong, head of Bach Mai Hospital's Diagnostic Imaging Department, said that he studied 167 cancer patients. Hepatocytes with hepatic arterial nodes at Bach Mai Hospital showed an average survival time of 18 months, the lowest was over 12 months, and there were no deaths due to treatment. There have been cases more than five years.

In the meantime, surgery was previously known as the only method of treatment, but it was rarely done because up to 80% of cases of liver cancer were diagnosed when many tumors appeared (or too large), u invade other organizations .

In fact in our country, the results of surgical treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma in major surgery centers are still complications after surgery, the extra time is not much, only about nine months.

According to Dr. Nguyen Quoc Hung, deputy dean of diagnostic imaging, the method of hepatic artery chemical button can not be applied universally to all liver cancers.

Types of cancer that have spread from elsewhere to the liver (eg pancreatic cancer) or liver cancer that has spread into many blocks, spread to other places . are not within the scope of treatment of this method.

Patients with obstructive jaundice, other combined diseases such as kidney failure, heart failure, a history of allergy are also not suitable. Patients with weakened conditions need to be treated internally positively until stabilization is possible for a vascular node.

This measure is very suitable for patients with relatively large tumors, located near large vessels that cannot be removed. For tumors of 10cm size, not yet invaded into the portal vein, causing thrombosis, the vascular node will show obvious effect.

The number of episodes depends on the response to treatment. The cost for one-time hepatic artery chemical is about 3 million VND.

DO THI NGOC HA