RESUMO
The aim of this study was to evaluate the clinical effectiveness of intra-arterial chemotherapy combined with degradable starch microspheres (DSM) for liver metastases and the possibility of predicting the effectiveness of the chemotherapy by pretreatment diagnostic imaging. The subjects were 67 patients with metastatic liver cancer, treated with Seldinger method via the left brachial artery, and tumor selective hepatic injection using a micro-catheter. The early response rate was 38.7% for colorectal cancer, 42.8% for gastric cancer, 16.7% for bile tract cancer and 80% for uterine cancer. The relationship between effectiveness and the tumor occupation rate in the liver estimated from pretreatment CT images was not significant, but the degree of tumor stain in the early phase of contrast enhancement CT correlated well with early responsiveness of the liver metastases for this treatment. This suggests the possibility of pretreatment prediction of the effectiveness of intra-arterial chemotherapy combined with DSM for metastatic liver tumors.
