The liver is the largest solid organ in the human body. Weighing about three pounds, this football-sized mass has over 200 functions, including filtering blood, detoxifying chemicals and processing all the food we eat.

Many people don’t think about how their liver functions – until it doesn’t. Although there are many reasons your liver can stop performing the way it should, cancer is one explanation. Certain liver cancers, such as inoperable tumors originating in the liver or metastatic liver cancer, have been treated with external beam radiation or chemotherapy. But because these types of treatments can’t be tightly focused on the tumor, healthy tissue is also affected and penetration is sometimes inadequate. Patients also experience severe side effects, like nausea, vomiting, extreme fatigue, neuropathy and hair loss.

Localized treatment
Now, a new minimally invasive liver cancer treatment is being offered in Chicagoland at Adventist Midwest Health.

Yttrium-90 (Y-90) microsphere therapy is a minimally invasive treatment option used to destroy liver tumors by localizing radiation therapy. Adventist Midwest Health offers patients both TheraSphere^® and its sister procedure, SIR-Sphere^® which are both types of Y-90 therapies used to eliminate tumors in the liver. Only 40 centers in America, including two in Chicagoland, perform both types of this procedure.

“Above all other organs, the liver tends to be the one that affects a cancer patient’s survival the most,” says Francis Facchini, MD, an interventional radiologist with Adventist Bolingbrook Hospital. “Because Y-90 is often combined with other cancer modalities, it gives us one more line of attack.”

A minimally invasive option
Before the procedure, an interventional radiologist, radiation oncologist, physicist and radiation safety officer work together to evaluate the tumors in the patient’s liver and determine an individualized dose of internal radiation.

During Y-90 treatment, the interventional radiologist makes a small incision in the patient’s groin and feeds a catheter, about the width of angel hair pasta, up to the liver. Microscopic glass beads with concentrated radiation are then fed to the tumor to destroy it. “Patients are able to return home the same day with only a bandage,” Dr. Facchini says. “But we continue to monitor them in our outpatient interventional radiology clinic for months, even years, after treatment to watch and control the tempo of their disease.”

The benefits of Y-90
“Because radiation is sent only to the tumors, healthy tissue in the liver and surrounding areas are spared,” Dr. Facchini says. Fatigue, nausea, vomiting and hair loss are common side effects of traditional cancer treatments, but are not part of the recovery in patients who receive Y-90. Patients are able to have an improved quality-of-life and concentrate more heavily on fighting their cancer.

Y-90 can help patients with a range of inoperable liver-dominant cancers, such as liver, breast, neuroendocrine, carcinoid and colon cancers. Although Y-90 microsphere therapies are relatively new, Dr. Facchini says research shows promise in treating more cancers in the future. “Through Adventist Midwest Health, we’ve been given a wonderful opportunity to build this unique program,” Dr. Facchini says. “Patients come from all over the state to benefit from these cutting-edge procedures, and we’re happy we can offer them the care they need.”

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