Another question regarding liver masses....

Mum has her first chemo yesterday for her reoccurence, she seems ok so far, she just feels tired and is craving sugar and sweets, she is on carboplatin and taxol.

Regarding the liver mass, which is an isolated small mass, why don't they operate?Is chemo the standard treatment for a liver mass.

Thanks

[Annekathryn Goodman, M.D.]

Hi Ang,

Thank you for your question. I have a question for you: how big is this liver mass?
Is there any other evidence by CT scan or PET scan of cancer outside of the liver?

Intravenous chemotherapy will circulate through the body and will affect cancer deposits that are sensitive to that particular chemo. The one exception is the brain and spinal cord. only certain chemotherapeutic agents will effectively cross the blood-brain barrier and get into the central nervous system.

For isolated disease in the liver , there are 4 treatment options:
-chemotherapy
-surgical resection
-radio frequency ablation
-radiation

the decision about which type of treatment to do will depend on the overall performance status of the person, whether there is other tumor deposits present in the body, the size of the liver mass, and various other health issues.

If there is no sign of other tumors and the liver mass is small and solitary ( say less than 5 cm), radio frequency ablation is a very reasonable choice.
If there are multiple liver spots, chemo is best.

if there is a solitary liver lesion and it is big, surgical resection could be considered.

Radiation might be reserved for someone who is very sick and is having pain from the liver tumor. The radiation may shrink it and alleviate the pain

best wishes

[Ang80]

Just bumping this msg up to the top.

[Ang80]

Thank you for your reply.

Mums mass is about 1.5-2cms they have said. There are 2 lymph nodes around the liver which are enlarged.
She is on carboplatin and taxol for 6 sessions.
Would you consider this the right treatment?

In terms of prognosis, we have been told that chemo is only palliative now. Is another remission possible?

Thanks for your time.

[Annekathryn Goodman, M.D.]

Hi There
that sounds like a good treatment. Remission is possible but there is a very high likelihood that the cancer will come back again
take care