Clinical application and advances in research on microspheres in TACE for hepatocellular carcinoma / 中华肝胆外科杂志

ABSTRACT

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) accounts for more than 90％ of primary liver cancer.Surgical resection is the standard modality of treatment.However,resection can only be performed in a minority of patients at the time of diagnosis.Data from several recently published studies are encouraging and suggest that TACE (transcatheter hepatic arterial chemoembolization) is superior to conservative treatment in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma who are not eligible for surgery.The traditional embolic agents such as iodized oil and gelatin sponge significantly prolonged survival in patients with HCC.However,the effects of these embolic agents are temporary.A new embolic agent,microspheres has attracted a lot of attention in our country and abroad.These microspheres can be divided into two categories:pure microspheres and carrier microspheres.In this paper,we review these two types of microspheres.