Palliation of hepatic tumors

Palliation is treatment aimed at alleviating the symptomatic effects of a disease rather than at curing the disease. The four most common types of liver tumors that often require palliative treatment include hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), cholangiocarcinoma (CC), metastatic colorectal carcinoma (mCRC), and metastatic neuroendocrine tumors (mNET). Modalities employed in the palliative treatment of these tumors most often include resection, stenting, chemotherapy, radiation, ablation, and the general treatment of liver failure symptoms. Many of these modalities can be applied to the palliative care of all hepatic tumor types, regardless of the specific tumor histology--as incurable cancers often converge along a final common pathway. We herein provide a review of the therapeutic approaches to palliate hepatic tumors, as well as how such therapies are designed to alleviate the symptoms of patients with end-stage liver tumors.