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Update on Treatment of Liver Metastases: Focus on Ablation Therapies

  • Gastrointestinal Cancers (B Czito, Section Editor)
  • Published:
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Abstract

There is substantial and growing interest in the use of local therapies to treat patients with metastatic cancer, especially those deemed to have “oligometastatic” disease. Much of the literature to date consists of reports on metastasectomy for liver and lung metastases. Non-surgical minimally or non-invasive treatments including thermal ablation, irreversible electroporation, and high-dose radiation therapy (stereotactic ablative radiation therapy) can also be used in the treatment of primary and secondary tumors, including in the treatment of liver metastases. In this review, we discuss the rationale for using these ablative treatments in the treatment of liver metastases including similarities and differences between them.

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Conflict of Interest

Seth Toomay declares that he has no conflict of interest.

Jeffrey Meyer reports a clinical trial support from Peregrine Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Radiation Oncology, UT Southwestern Medical Center, 5801 Forest Park Road, Dallas, TX, 75390, USA

    Jeffrey Meyer

  2. Department of Radiology, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, 75390, USA

    Seth Toomay

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  1. Jeffrey Meyer
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Correspondence to Jeffrey Meyer.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Gastrointestinal Cancers

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Meyer, J., Toomay, S. Update on Treatment of Liver Metastases: Focus on Ablation Therapies. Curr Oncol Rep 17, 420 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11912-014-0420-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11912-014-0420-2

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