Ethanol injection of hepatic tumors

To assess the efficacy of intratumoral injections of absolute ethanol in the treatment of hepatic tumors, 18 New Zealand White rabbits underwent implantation of two 1-mm3 fragments of the VX-2 carcinoma. The animals were reexplored 2 weeks postimplant and the tumors measured. One nodule was treated by intratumoral injections of 2.28 +/- 0.72 mL of absolute ethanol; the second was injected with an equal amount of normal saline. The animals were sacrificed 4 weeks postimplant, and the tumors were measured and microscopically examined. On gross inspection, tumor size, expressed as the product of the largest and smallest diameters, was 4.59 +/- 3.4 cm2 for the ethanol-injected tumors vs 6.73 +/- 2.1 cm2 for the saline-treated nodules (p = .01). Histologic sections through the largest tumor diameter were microscopically examined using a computerized image analyzer. The mean cross-sectional area of viable tumor was 0.51 +/- 0.3 cm2 for the ethanol-treated nodules vs 2.01 +/- 0.5 cm2 for the saline-treated nodules (p less than .001). Contrast-enhanced CT and MRI studies were able to provide valuable information in terms of tissue characterization, which will be useful in differentiating viable tumor from necrotic tumor and infarcted liver. We conclude that intratumoral ethanol injection inhibits growth of liver tumors in this experimental model and deserves further study.