liver cancer treatment

Physicians Stop Liver Cancer with Millions of Glass Beads

University of Cincinnati (UC) physicians are using a new technique that involves injecting patients with millions of tiny radioactive glass beads to control advanced, inoperable liver cancer.

No wider than a single strand of human hair, the beads kill liver cancer cells from inside the tumor.

Darryl Zuckerman, MD, offers the minimally invasive procedure, known as TheraSphere, at University Hospital and is the only physician in Ohio trained to perform it. UC’s Academic Health Center is one of 28 medical centers across the United States offering the treatment.

“The only real cure for liver cancer is an organ transplant,” explains Zuckerman, an associate professor and interventional radiologist at UC. “But this procedure allows us to stabilize the patient’s condition by controlling cancer growth and shrinking the tumor. Then we can deal with it surgically, or as a stand-alone therapy for patients who aren’t good candidates for surgery.”

This treatment is intended for patients with a form of cancer known as advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), which starts in the liver’s cells and develops into one or multiple tumors that cannot be removed in surgery.

Primary liver cancer-which grows from within the organ as opposed to spreading there from another area of the body-is rare but is increasing at a very rapid rate in the United States, according to Zuckerman. HCC is the most common type of primary liver cancer in adults and accounts for 80 percent of all primary liver cancers. Colorectal, breast and gastric cancers also commonly spread to the liver.

“By delivering highly targeted radiation from inside the body,” says Zuckerman, “we can help minimize damage to surrounding tissue and slow the progression of the liver cancer for patients awaiting liver transplant. For other patients, this procedure can reduce the size of the tumor to a point where it can be removed surgically, giving patients new hope for survival.”

Two weeks before treatment patients undergo an angiogram, which allows an interventional radiologist to identify blood vessels feeding the liver tumor. Depending on the anatomy of the blood vessels, the radiologist may place metal coils in surrounding blood vessels to prevent the beads from traveling to other organs in the body.

cancer treatment center of america

Midway between Chicago and Milwaukee you'll find a special kind of hospital.

Located in a restorative, rural setting in Zion, Illinois, Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA) at Midwestern Regional Medical Center is one of the premier providers of cancer care in the world. We offer the best of traditional treatment-chemotherapy, radiation therapy and surgery-but go well beyond those disciplines to treat the whole person-not just the disease.

Unlike other facilities that rely on a narrow spectrum of isolated treatments, CTCA constantly pushes the envelope to find the best combination of approved therapies for our patients' particular cancer. In fact, many of the nation's other leading cancer facilities are just beginning to embrace the whole-person approach we've been perfecting for the last 25 years.Our approach to care in Zion has attracted an internationally recognized team dedicated to eliminating cancer-many are professionals you just can't find at other hospitals. For instance, we have a female gynecologic oncologist on staff. Even though the National Institute of Health recommends women diagnosed with gynecologic cancers be treated by a specialist for optimal treatment outcome, most local and community hospitals do not have a gynecologic oncologist on staff.

alternative cancer treatment

Alternative Cancer Treatments and Protocols

There are many definitions to alternative cancer treatments, but let's just define them, for the sake of logical orientation, as non-traditional treatments for cancer. Richard Walters has organized them this way in his book Options: The Alternative Cancer Therapy Book. It's a good place to start. We spend a good deal of our time evaluating the most promising components of many of the following historical programs, as well as talking with consultants possessing years of experience. Alternative cancer treatments include, but are not limited to the following (Please note: No endorsement by Alternative Cancer Treatments is implied by being listed here):

Biological and Pharmcologic Therapies

Antineoplastons

Gaston Naessens Therapy (714X)

Revici Therapy

Hydrazine Sulfate

Immune Therapies

Immuno-Augmentative Therapy (IAT)

Issels whole-body immune therapy

Herbal Therapies

Harry Hoxsey formulas

Essiac tea

Mistletoe (Iscador)...as used by Suzanne Somers

Pau D'Arco

Chaparral

Nutritional Therapies

Wheatgrass Therapy

Macrobiotics

Moerman's Anti-Cancer diet

Metabolic Therapies

Gerson

Kelley's Nutritional-Metabolic Therapy (as modified by Nicholas Gonzalez, MD)

Hans Nieper, M.D.

Adjunctive Therapies

Oxygen Therapies (including Ozone)

Hyperthermia

DMSO therapy

Chelation

Live Cell therapy

Energy Medicine

Bioelectric Therapies

Homeopathy

Airhead

Chinese Medicine

Mind-Body Approaches

The most successful practitioners seem to be those who integrate various components of the alternative cancer treatments listed above, without painting themselves into a corner by being committed to a particular model.

Cancer Treatment

Cancer (medicine), any of more than 100 diseases characterized by excessive, uncontrolled growth of abnormal cells, which invade and destroy other tissues . Cancer develops in almost any organ or tissue of the body, but certain types of cancer are more lethal than others. Cancer is the leading cause of death in Canada and second only to heart disease in the United States. Each year, more than 1.2 million Americans and 132,000 Canadians are diagnosed with cancer, and more than 1,700 people die from cancer each day in the United States and Canada. For reasons not well understood, cancer rates vary by gender, race, and geographic region. For instance, more males have cancer than females, and African Americans are more likely to develop cancer than persons of any other racial and ethnic group in North America. Cancer rates also vary globally-residents of the United States, for example, are nearly three times as likely to develop cancer than are residents of Egypt.

Introduction to Cancer Treatment

Cancer treatment varies depending upon your type of cancer, stage of cancer, and overall condition. Additionally, your treatment may vary depending on whether or not the goal of your treatment is to cure your cancer, keep your cancer from spreading, or to relieve the symptoms caused by cancer. Depending on these factors, you may receive one or more of the following:

Surgery

Chemotherapy

Radiation therapy

Hormonal therapy

Targeted therapy

Angiogenesis means the formation of new blood vessels. Angiogenesis is a process controlled by certain chemicals produced in the body. These chemicals stimulate blood vessels or form new ones. Other chemicals, called angiogenesis inhibitors, signal the process to stop.

Angiogenesis plays an important role in the growth and spread of cancer. New blood vessels “feed” the cancer cells with oxygen and nutrients, allowing these cells to grow, invade nearby tissue, spread to other parts of the body, and form new colonies of cancer cells.

Because cancer cannot grow or spread without the formation of new blood vessels, scientists are trying to find ways to stop angiogenesis. They are studying natural and synthetic angiogenesis inhibitors, also called anti-angiogenesis agents, in the hope that these chemicals will prevent the growth of cancer by blocking the formation of new blood vessels. In animal studies, angiogenesis inhibitors have successfully stopped the formation of new blood vessels, causing the cancer to shrink and die.