Liver Cancer Treatment: TheraSphere®
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TheraSphere® for Liver Cancer
TheraSphere® is an innovative radiation therapy that can be used to treat liver cancer, and cancers that metastasize to the liver from another organ (e.g., colorectal cancers that spread to the liver).
Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA) is proud to be one of the few facilities in the United States to offer TheraSphere® as a liver cancer treatment option. An innovative, new form of radiation therapy, TheraSphere® uses tiny glass beads, called microspheres, to deliver radiation directly to cancerous tumors in the liver. Measuring one-third the diameter of a human hair, these tiny microspheres are embedded with a radioactive element to help kill liver cancer cells.
More specifically, TheraSphere® radiation therapy is delivered through a catheter that is positioned in the hepatic artery, the liver’s main blood vessel. The physician guides the catheter into the branch of the hepatic artery that feeds the liver cancer tumor. The physician then infuses the microspheres directly through the catheter into the tumor’s blood supply. Once in the liver, the microspheres get trapped in the small blood vessels that feed the tumor, and radiation gets delivered directly to the tumor.
TheraSphere® is an outpatient treatment. Compared to traditional chemotherapy and radiation, it offers patients with inoperable liver cancer (hepatocellular carcinoma, HCC) a potentially less toxic option for their liver cancer treatment. Because of its precise method of targeting, TheraSphere® is also useful for helping to spare surrounding healthy tissue. Before TheraSphere® can be recommended, patients at CTCA will undergo a series of tests to see if they are candidates for this therapy.