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Brachytherapy in the treatment of solitary colorectal metastases to the liver
Author(s) -
Donath D.,
Nori D.,
Turnbull A.,
Kaufman N.,
Fortner J. G.
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
journal of surgical oncology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.201
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1096-9098
pISSN - 0022-4790
DOI - 10.1002/jso.2930440113
Subject(s) - medicine , brachytherapy , radiation therapy , resection , limiting , radiology , surgery , mechanical engineering , engineering
It is well‐established that 30–40% of patients with solitary liver metastases from primary colorectal tumors can be cured by resection. Conventional radiation therapy has had only a palliative role in treating liver metastases because the dose that the liver will tolerate is far below a tumoricidal dose. In contrast, brachytherapy allows one to deliver a tumoricidal dose to the tumor while limiting the dose to surrounding normal tissue to the tolerance dose. As a pilot study, 125 I seeds were implanted into unresectable hepatic metastases, or positive margins of resection, at the time of surgery. This report concerns six patients whose liver lesions were the only known site of disease and in whom precipitous drops in carcinembryonic antigen (CEA) levels followed the implants. Recurrence was observed in only one of the 11 implanted sites, with a median follow‐up of 12 months.