There’s an encouraging story over at the Sydney Morning Herald about the use of radioactive beads for patients with inoperable primary and metastatic liver tumors. The side effects from the treatment seem to be minor, and since these are patients with very few effective options, a new and effective treatment is always welcome. If the need should arise, this is an option that we might try with Lori’s cancer in the future. Excerpt:

Injecting radioactive pellets directly into the liver can successfully treat liver cancer where chemotherapy has failed, according to the results of a small Australian trial.

More than 2000 Australians have already been treated with the beads, known as Selective Internal Radiation Therapy (SIRT), in which the material is fed into the liver via an artery in the groin.

It is used to treat primary liver cancer, and secondary tumours from cancers in other parts of the body - particularly the colon.

But until now formal trials have only been conducted in people who have not had previous drug therapy.

The new study of 30 patients shows the treatment shrinks liver tumours in a quarter of those who have either failed to respond to up to three types of chemotherapy, or who have initially responded and then relapsed, said study leader Peter Gibbs, a senior staff specialist in oncology at the Royal Melbourne Hospital.

You can read the rest of the story at: Nuclear pellets offer new hope in cancer fight

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