Cancer occupied half of the liver in a 71-year-old patient, treated with TACE

Cancer takes up half of the liver

Ho Chi Minh City Mr. Trinh, 71 years old, had a dull stomach ache. The doctor discovered a cancerous tumor occupying half of his liver.

Mr. Trinh was diagnosed with chronic hepatitis B for two years but without continuous treatment, now has abdominal pain. The results of a 1975 CT scan at Tam Anh General Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City recorded a tumor measuring about 8x15x9 cm located in the lower segments V, VII and VIII of the liver.

Dr. Nguyen Trung Duc, Center for Diagnostic Imaging and Interventional Radiology, suspected hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). This is a common type of primary liver cancer. The disease often develops on the basis of chronic liver damage such as hepatitis B, hepatitis C or cirrhosis, but in the early stages it rarely causes symptoms, so most people discover it when the tumor is large.

Doctor Duc believes that Mr. Trinh has hepatitis B but does not receive continuous treatment, so it is possible that the virus causes chronic inflammation, causing liver cells to continuously be damaged and regenerated. This prolonged process increases the risk of mutations appearing in liver cells, thereby forming cancer.

Large tumors are supplied with blood from many arterial branches, making liver resection surgery at risk of heavy bleeding and reducing the volume of healthy liver after surgery. If the remaining liver does not have enough volume or function, the patient is at risk of liver failure after surgery.

The consulting doctor prescribed chemical embolization (TACE) for the patient. This technique delivers chemotherapy drugs directly into the arterial branches that feed the tumor, and at the same time causes embolism to reduce blood supply, causing tumor tissue to necrosis, thereby controlling tumor growth.

During the intervention, doctors inserted a catheter through the right femoral artery, followed the blood vessel system to each branch of the artery feeding the tumor, and injected a mixture of chemicals and embolizing materials. The post-intervention scan results showed that almost all of the vascular branches feeding the tumor were completely blocked.

After the intervention, the patient was alert, his abdominal pain improved, he could eat, walk, and was discharged from the hospital according to the doctor's monitoring plan.

Examination results after two months showed that the largest diameter of the tumor decreased from about 15 cm to 11 cm. The patient is assessed for remaining active tumor tissue and the vascular system that feeds the tumor to determine the next treatment direction.

Liver cancer progresses silently, making it difficult to detect early. Therefore, patients need to comply with prescribed treatment and have regular check-ups to help detect cancer early when the tumor is still small to have the opportunity to apply radical and more effective treatment methods.

Nhu Ngoc

*The patient's name has been changed