Clinical study of intra-arterial hyperthermia chemoembolization combined with Tween-80 for treatment of metastatic hepatic carcinoma

Objective: To study the feasibility of intra-arterial hyperthermia chemoembolization combined with Tween-80 for the treatment of metastatic hepatic carcinoma. Methods: Thirty-two cases of metastatic hepatic carcinoma were randomly divided into two groups: studied group (n=15) and control group (n=17). The cases of the studied group were treated with transcatheter arterial thermochemoembolization using tween-80, lipiodol, and chemotherapeutic agents which were all warmed to 62 degree C before infusing into the arterial catheter. The cases of the control group were treated with routine transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE). Results: The tumor growth rate of the studied group (-0.41 ± 0.25) was smaller than that of the control group (-0.12 ± 0.45), showed significant difference between the two groups (P<0.05). The short term effective rate was 60% in the studied group, and 41.2% for the control group. There was no difference statistically (P>0.05). In the studied group, the mild, moderate and severe adverse reactions occurred in 20%, 23.5% and 53.3% of the cases, comparing with 58.8%, 26.7% and 17.7% of those in the control group respectively. Both of them demonstrated also no significant difference (P>0.05). Conclusions: Transcatheter arterial thermochemoembolization combined with hepatic arterial infusion of Tween-80 is an effective and safe method in treating metastatic hepatic carcinoma