New liver cancer treatment ‘effective in 90% of patients’

Chemosaturation will allow doctors to administer larger doses of drugs as it doesn’t enter the bloodstream, Aisha Rimi reports

(PA)

A new treatment for liver cancer, which isolates the organ and prevents damage to healthy parts of the body, has been found to be effective in almost 90 per cent of patients.

The procedure being pioneered in the UK at University Hospital Southampton involves using two small balloons to divert blood past the liver for an hour while delivering drugs directly into the organ.

The technique, known as chemosaturation or percutaneous hepatic perfusion (PHP), allows doctors to administer much larger doses of drugs than patients would receive with standard chemotherapy as it does not enter the bloodstream and cause unnecessary damage to healthy parts of the body.