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Doctors attack malignant tumors via your vascular
system.
When we think of cancer treatments, we usually think of
surgery, chemotherapy and radiation. But today there’s
a fourth approach that uses imaging technologies like that
employed in X-rays. It’s called interventional oncology—one
of the fastest growing fields of interventional radiology,
and it is performed by radiologists with special fellowship
training. This fast-growing area of medicine includes a group
of treatments for advanced cancers—especially the liver
cancer—that offers a unique approach to destroying
hard to reach or inoperable benign and cancerous tumors.
Within a specially designed interventional radiology suite,
physicians use computer-guided imagery which are generated
by X-rays, to thread tiny guide wires and instruments through
the body’s network of blood vessels and perform procedures
right at the site of disease.
At Monmouth
Medical Center, these treatments are offered in the Interventional
Oncology Program, recently established in the Department
of Radiology, explains Peter Park, M.D., chief of interventional
radiology. The program’s launch was
made possible by the recent addition to the staff of Ernest Wiggins, M.D.,
32, an interventional radiologist who did his residency under Dr. Park at Monmouth,
and adds to the premier arsenal of cancer fighting programs at Monmouth’s
Leon Hess Cancer Center, including surgical
oncology, the Institute for Advanced
Radiation Oncology which features TomoTherapy, the Jacqueline
M. Wilentz Comprehensive Breast Center and the David
S. Zocchi Brain Tumor Center to name a few.
“He was one of the best residents we’ve had,” says the doctor. “Because
of that, he got a great fellowship, at Northwestern Memorial
Hospital in Chicago, the country’s premier place for interventional oncology.” Dr.
Park had been doing some interventional oncology procedures, “but I do
a lot of other things too,” he says. “We wanted to expand this
area of our practice, and, lucky for us, Dr. Wiggins decided to come back.”
According
to Dr. Wiggins, one advantage of interventional oncology
is that it offers patients who otherwise were considered nonsurgical candidates
for either resection of a tumor or organ transplant, another treatment option. “Interventional
techniques offer an additional option and may also be employed
as part of a multidisciplinary treatment plan through collaboration with a
patient’s
medical oncologist.”
With liver
cancer, in many cases removing the tumor with surgery may
not leave enough healthy tissue for the liver to still function. Primary liver
tumors or liver tumors that have resulted from a metastatic cancer (a cancer
that started somewhere else in the body) are good candidates for interventional
oncology, indicates Dr. Wiggins. “In fact, in some cases, a previous
attempt to treat the tumor, such as with chemotherapy, has failed and interventional
oncology is the next option.”
Depending
on the patient case, the interventional radiologist may employ
either hepatic artery embolization or radiofrequency ablation. Both are
delivered to the tumor site in the liver.
Hepatic artery embolization, in layman’s
terms simply involves cutting off the liver tumor’s blood supply. The
tumor is deprived of blood from the vessels that branch off
the heptatic artery by inserting microscopic particles. “The
beads act as a dam to block blood flow to the tumor, but
blood still flows to the rest of the liver,” he explains.
The tumor cells then lack the nourishment to multiply and
survive, and in many cases resulting in decreasing the size
of the tumor. By reducing the size of the tumors, doctors
often can make liver surgery viable.
Radiofrequency ablation,
which is utilized for small tumors, utilizes radio waves
to create heat which is directed at the tumor to destroy
the cancer cells and leave healthy liver tissue in tact.
During the following months the destroyed, dead cells turn
into a harmless scar.
“We employ these techniques to
preserve liver function by either killing the tumor or keeping
it from progressing, which helps preserve the patient's quality
of life and may extend life over the course of this disease,” adds
Dr. Wiggins.
In addition
to treating liver tumors, interventional oncology is also
utilized to treat kidney tumors, lung tumors and neuro-endocrine tumors. Embolization
is also a technique that interventional radiologists use to treat benign tumors
of the uterus in a procedure called uterine fibroid embolization,
a possible alternative to hysterectomy or myomectomy.
In the future,
both Dr. Park and Dr. Wiggins view other treatment modalities
as possible additions to interventional oncology program at Monmouth Medical
Center, including chemoembolization, and portal vein embolization.
Monmouth’s
interventional oncologists work closely with the entire Cancer Center team to
provide care beyond what the typical community hospital can offer. “We
are pioneering types here,” says Dr. Park. “The
people in this community should realize they don’t
have to go to the city or Philadelphia to get this high-end
care. It’s available right here.”
For more information on interventional oncology at Monmouth
Medical Center, please call 1-888-724-7123.
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