DR'S REMOVE LIVER & TREAT CANCER

[Guest guest]

Italian Surgeons Remove Liver to Treat Cancer

Wednesday, December 18, 2002 2:13 p.m. ET

LONDON - Italian scientists have taken a new approach to treating liver cancer by removing the organ, dosing it with radiation and then replacing it in the patient.

A 48-year-old man who was the first patient to have the innovative treatment at the San Matteo Hospital in Pavia, Italy is cancer-free a year after he was treated during the 21-hour operation for more than 14 tumors in his liver.

"The out-of-body operation allows doctors to administer high doses of radiation to widespread tumors without affecting other organs," New Scientist magazine said Wednesday.

Surgeon Aris Zonta and physicist Tazio Pinelli of the National Institute of Nuclear Physics in Italy, who co-ordinated the procedure, are awaiting approval to treat six other patients with multiple tumors.

The original patient had cancer of the colon, which had spread to the liver. The cancer did not respond to chemotherapy and was so widespread that conventional radiotherapy would have destroyed the liver.

The Italian scientists decided to try boron neutron capture therapy which they have been working on since 1987 and which was first attempted in the 1950s.

It involves injecting a fluid containing boron atoms into the patient and using a low-energy neutron beam to split the boron into particles that kill the cancerous cells.

But an even dose of neutrons is needed to treat the entire organ and bones in the body can block the beam so the surgeons removed the liver, treated it and then replaced in the body.

"By explanting the organ, we could give a high and uniform dose to all the liver, which is impossible to obtain inside the body without serious risk to the patient," Pinelli told the magazine.

Although the treatment, which has been dubbed TAORMINA, was successful and could give new hope to seriously ill patients it would only be suitable for patients whose cancer has spread to only one other organ and if they are strong to survive the operation. "The technique is currently being tested on patients with otherwise untreatable brain tumors -- obviously without removing the organ in question," he magazine added.

[Guest guest]

Barb,

Talk about an out of body experience!!

One thing about this is that it should give everyone hope. If

they can acomplish this, what else is coming down the pike that will

affect us? Tim L

Tim Long UC / PSC 25+ yrs TX 8/2/02

married 36 yrs, 2 daughters & 2 grandkids