High Tech Road Map Helps Kill Liver Cancer -- Research Summary

BACKGROUND: The percentage of Americans that develop liver cancer has been slowly rising for several decades. Liver cancer is more common in men than women, though it is rare in the US in both groups. More than 90% of people diagnosed with liver cancer are older than 45 years of age, and the average age for diagnosis is 63 years old. Around 3% are between 35 and 44 years old and less than 3% are younger than 35.

This cancer is substantially more common in countries in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia than in the United States. It is the most common type of cancer in many of these countries. Liver cancer is diagnosed in more than 700,000 people worldwide as a leading cause of cancer deaths, accounting for more than 600,000 deaths each year. (Source: www.cancer.org)

TYPES: Hepatocellular Carcinoma: most common type of liver cancer where cancer cells form in liver tissue. It affects an estimated 24,000 people in the US each year.

Cholangiocarcinoma (Bile Duct Cancer): a rare cancer which occurs in ducts that drain bile from the liver to the small intestine. Every year, 2,000 to 3,000 people are diagnosed in the US.

Liver Metastasis: Cancer that starts in another part of the body and spreads to the liver. The most common cancers to spread to the liver are colorectal cancers, gastrointestinal cancers, and melanoma. (Source: www.upmccancercenters.com)

TREATMENT: There are many different options to treat liver cancer, depending on what stage you are in. Treatment options include surgery to remove a portion of the liver, a liver transplant, freezing cancer cells, heating cancer cells, injecting alcohol into the tumor, injecting chemotherapy drugs into the liver, radiation therapy, and targeted drug therapy. (Source: www.mayoclinic.com)

NEW TECHNOLOGY: The goal of creating this system was to develop a laparoscopic method for three-dimensional localization of tissue and organ surfaces during minimally-invasive, image-guided surgery. It would hopefully bring the benefits of image-guided surgery to abdominal laparoscopic procedures. The system has the potential to track tissue movement in real time and to measure the shape of visible anatomic structures via rapid localization of large numbers of surface points. Localization can be performed at sufficiently high data rates to track tissue motion due to respiration, guide coregistration with preoperative anatomic image sets, and provide the constraints required by deformable tissue models. The system was designed around conventional laparoscopes so image guidance can be provided with very little change to normal clinical procedures. (Source: bmlweb.vuse.vanderbilt.edu) MORE

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