CyberKnife® radiosurgery represents a biologically potent intervention against HCC that may be employed as an aggressive “bridge treatment” to patients awaiting hepatic transplantation. It may be used alone, or in combination with other therapies, such as hepatic chemotherapeutic infusion of agents like Floxuridine (16, 21, 22, 23).
Due to it’s very sharp therapeutic margin, CyberKnife® radiosurgery will typically have less effect on adjacent sensitive tissues compared with other radiotherapeutic approaches, causing less potential impairment of surgical tissue healing at the subsequent resection or transplantation procedure. CyberKnife® radiosurgery is also capable of covering large, irregular lesions well, potentially providing a more complete antineoplastic treatment of complex lesions compared with radiofrequency ablation. These coverage and margin restriction characteristics would appear to make CyberKnife® a very reasonable “bridge treatment” for HCC patients awaiting their definitive procedure.
Hepatocellular Carcinoma
Written by Donald B. Fuller, M.D. – Radiation Oncologist