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Thermal Ablation versus SBRT in liver tumours: pros and cons

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Abstract

Non-surgical locally ablative treatments for primary liver cancer and liver metastases represent an effective therapeutic choice when surgery cannot be performed or is not indicated. Thermal ablative employing electric currents or electromagnetic fields have historically played an important role in this setting. Radiotherapy, in the last decades, due to a series of important technological development, has become an attractive option for the treatment of liver tumours, especially with the introduction of Stereotactic Body Radiotherapy. Published literature so far evidenced both for radiotherapy and thermal ablative techniques a benefit in terms of local control and other oncological outcomes; however, no direct prospective comparison between the two techniques have been published so far. The aim of this review is to summarize the technical and clinical implications of these treatment modalities and to identify criteria to allocate patients to one or another option in consideration of the expected efficacy. The main features and critical aspects of both thermoablative techniques and external beam radiation will also be covered in the present paper.

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  1. Radiotherapy Department, University of Florence, Largo Brambilla 3, 50134, Florence, Italy

    Mauro Loi, Isacco Desideri, Luca Dominici, Giulio Francolini, Pietro Garlatti, Lucia Pia Ciccone, Giulia Stocchi, Viola Salvestrini, Icro Meattini & Lorenzo Livi

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  1. Mauro Loi
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  2. Isacco Desideri
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Loi, M., Desideri, I., Dominici, L. et al. Thermal Ablation versus SBRT in liver tumours: pros and cons. Med Oncol 37, 52 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12032-020-01377-7

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