New cancer technique on trial

Friday February 26th, 2010

A new technique aimed at treating cancer in the liver is to be tested in Britain, it was announced yesterday.

The trial is to test a treatment called radio-embolisation.

The technique seeks to use the blood supply in the liver to deliver doses of radiation to scattered cancer cells within the organ. The aim is to destroy the cancer while preserving the liver.

It uses radioactive particles injected directly by tube into the blood supply of the liver.

The first patient to receive the new treatment is at the Royal Surrey County Hospital, Guildford.

The treatment is being tested on bowel cancer patients whose disease has spread to the liver.

Some 500 patients will take part in the British trial, known as Foxfire - and another 300 world-wide will take part in a similar trial.

Researcher Dr Ricky Sharma, of Oxford University, said: "Although we now have several new ways of treating bowel cancer which has spread to the liver, we are keen to develop other novel techniques to improve treatment.

"What is exciting about this new technique is that we know that radiotherapy works well in treating bowel cancer and this new way of administering high-dose radiation therapy directly into the blood supply of the cancer appears to be effective when we combine it with chemotherapy.

"We are hoping that this national trial will tell us whether this new form of radiotherapy, when combined with standard chemotherapy, improves the outcome for individual patients."

Kate Law, of Cancer Research UK, which is running the trial, said: "It's a promising trial and we look forward to following its progress and seeing the results."

Tags: Cancer | Internal Medicine | UK News

Printer friendly page