Research advances in external beam radiotherapy for hepatocellular carcinoma / 中国肿瘤临床

ABSTRACT

Surgical resection or liver transplantation are the primary curative treatments for hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC).However, a minority of patients are eligible for these treatment strategies upon initial diagnosis.With the development of radiotherapy technol-ogy,radiotherapy is being used increasingly in the treatment of HCC.A large number of studies have shown that external beam radio-therapy has obvious advantages for different stages of HCC.Stereotactic radiotherapy provides an alternative to radiofrequency abla-tion in the treatment of early unresectable HCC,and radiotherapy combined with other local or systemic treatments,including trans-catheter arterial chemoembolization and sorafenib,has been applied for the treatment of locally advanced and distant metastatic le-sions.The particle beam has the advantages of Bragg peak and better dose distribution compared to conventional radiography,show-ing promising prospect in clinical application.This review focuses on the developments in the field of external beam radiotherapy in the treatment of HCC.