Combination Therapy for Advanced Liver Cancer

Many patients with liver cancer cannot be treated with surgery because of the extent of their cancer or underlying liver disease, such as cirrhosis. City of Hope offers a number of treatments aimed at eliminating liver tumors and improving quality of life for these patients. Treatment plans may include one or a combination of treatments, including minimally invasive procedures chemotherapy and biologic therapy, or radiation therapy. 

Treatment Approach

Chemotherapy & Biologic Therapy
The City of Hope is pursuing several novel strategies to improve treatment for patients with advanced or recurrent liver cancer. Our researchers also are evaluating new methods of killing cancer, such as gene therapies directly at liver cancers.

Our doctors were among the first to use hepatic arterial infusion chemotherapy, which delivers chemotherapy drugs directly to the liver through a pump in the abdomen. This technique, used in combination with traditional chemotherapy, has been shown to dramatically increase survival for patients with liver cancer.

Our team of physician-scientists is working to develop novel therapies that stop liver cancer cells from replicating or target the blood vessels that nourish liver tumors.

Radiation Therapy 
Radiation therapy, given alone or in combination with other treatments, may be another option for selected patients who are not candidates for surgery. Our doctors use techniques such as image-guided radiation therapy and respiratory gating to deliver the highest possible doses of radiation directly to the tumor site while reducing the toxicity, or damage, to healthy tissue that may occur during radiation therapy for liver cancer.

Back to the liver cancer program .