Docs zap liver cancer

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By JACQUI THORNTON Health Editor

DOCTORS have cured a man with liver cancer by cutting out the organ, zapping it with radiation and putting it back in his body.

The revolutionary treatment, carried out during a 21-hour op, destroyed 14 tumours.

It also caused no radiation damage to neighbouring organs as traditional radiotherapy would have done.

The patient, 48, has now been cancer-free for more than a year and his liver is working normally.

Docs at San Matteo Hospital in Pavia, Italy, are awaiting approval to try the technique on six other patients.

Expert Dr Derek Hill, of King’s College, London, praised the Italians’ “radical approach”.

He said treating liver cancer at the moment was “almost impossible” because it was hard to see with scans and radiotherapy could seriously damage the bowel.

He added: “This seems like a very nice, neat technique. As a piece of lateral thinking it appears very attractive.”

But Dr Hill warned that more cases needed to be studied before it could be considered a general treatment for liver cancer. He added: “The devil is in the detail.”

The treatment, reported in the New Scientist, gives fresh hope to patients with cancers in other organs that can be transplanted, such as the lungs or pancreas.

Dr Tazio Pinelli, who coordinated the liver treatment, said removing the organ had allowed medics to use “a high and uniform dose” of radiation.

The team decided to use the technique, called Taormina, after the cancer failed to respond to chemotherapy.

Traditional radiotherapy was ruled out because it would have destroyed the liver.

-- Anonymous, December 19, 2002


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