[Clinical evaluation of local lipiodol chemoembolization therapy in primary and secondary hepatic tumors]

The authors treated with locoregional lipiodol chemoembolization 32 patients suffering from primary and secondary liver malignancies. They present the clinical results of the 22 patients who received at least 2 treatments. Distribution of patients: 17 men, 5 women, mean age 56.2 (43-80) years. Seven patients suffered from primary liver carcinoma; regarding the Child's staging of the tumors 4 patients were in Child A, 3 patients in Child B. In 15 cases the treatment indication was secondary liver cancer. The primary tumors in these secondary liver cancer cases were: one case lung cancer, 11 colon (2 cases rectum) cancer, 2 cases pancreas cancer, one case gastric carcinoma. The 22 patients received in total 97 cycles of therapy. After the selective catheterisation of the hepatic artery adriamycin, mitomycin C, 5-fluorouracil or lipiodol was administered. During the mean follow up time of 9 months (3-15 months) remission could be observed in 6/22 patients. The side effects were preventable or medically treatable. It can be concluded that in the case of well-selected cases of non-resectable liver malignancies local chemoembolization could be beneficial, as it could slow down the progression of the underlying disease with the maintainment or even improvement of the quality of life.