HONG KONG—It is alarming to know that 80 percent of liver cancer cases occur in the Asia-Pacific region and that this particular type is the third cause of cancer-related deaths in this side of the world.
But what is disturbing to note is that at present there is still no efficient mechanism that will allow the early detection of liver cancer. What’s more, the number of cases continues to grow every single year.
In fact, some 750,000 new cases of hepatocellular carcinoma, more commonly known as liver cancer, are reported worldwide every year, said Dr. Bruno Sangro of Clinica Universitaria, in a recent briefing here conducted by oncology treatment company Sirtex Medical.
Sangro added that hepatocellular carcinoma is usually more common in countries where Hepatitis B virus carriers are prevalent.
Cause of liver damage
In the Philippines, it was earlier reported that Hepatitis B was the leading cause of liver damage resulting in liver cirrhosis and liver cancer. At least one out of 10 people is a carrier of Hepatitis B. It is estimated that more than 7.7-million people are chronically infected with Hepatitis B, of whom between 1.1 and 1.9 million are expected to die prematurely of cirrhosis or liver cancer, according to a previous Inquirer news report.
The good news, however, is that the medical community continues to find ways to cure, or at least improve the quality of life of patients diagnosed with liver cancer.
A case in point is the publication of Sirtex Medical’s six-year retrospective analysis of 325 patients treated with its targeted radioactive SIR-Spheres microspheres therapy for inoperable primary liver cancer.
The study, according to Sirtex chief executive officer Gilman Wong, is the largest multicenter evaluation of radioembolisation (also known as Selective Internal Radiation Therapy or SIRT) using SIR-Spheres that showed results confirming that the treatment was safe and effective in a range of patients with early to advanced stages of the disease.
“These positive results build on the growing body of robust clinical evidence that demonstrates SIR-Spheres microspheres deliver very encouraging clinical outcomes across the different stages of liver cancer,” Wong shared.
To date, independent researchers from eight European treatment centers reported robust evidence of the survival achieved using SIR-Spheres microspheres, including patients with advanced diseases and few treatment options.
“The new data will further support the expanding use of SIR-Spheres microspheres in a wider patient population and bolster our efforts to support medical professionals treating liver cancer patients at over 400 treatment centers worldwide,” Wong added.
In the same briefing, Dr. Vanessa H. de Villa, director of Center for Liver Disease Management and Transplantation at the Medical City, said that although the procedure is still very new in the Philippines, it has already benefited a number of patients.
“We are one among the first to do it. We started in 2008 and we have done 15 to 20 procedures already,” De Villa said.
At present, De Villa said there are three hospitals in the Philippines where the procedure can be done.
Admittedly though, the procedure can be very expensive, De Villa believes that cost should not be the only thing highlighted when it comes to improving the quality of life of patients.
Factor in 3 things
“Cost varies from country to country and in the Philippines, you have to factor in three things: hospital cost, doctors’ fee and cost of the procedure itself, which is actually expensive at about P500,000 already,” De Villa explained.
Roughly, the treatment may run up to as much as P1 million.
“But if you do the other treatments like taking drugs such as Sorafenib, that is also quite expensive … At the recommended dose, you spend something like P300,000 a month and that (is something) you take for life. So if you compare that with SIRT—which is a single or one-shot deal or at most you can have two or three treatments—then the costs are comparable,” she further noted.
SIRT, according to De Villa, requires two admissions. First is for mapping and geography, which is done to assess and see if the patient will qualify for the treatment or not. Second would be the actual procedure, which would normally take one or two hours at most.
“First option is surgery but if for some reason the patient can’t go through surgery we have other alternatives to offer and one of them is SIRT,” De Villa said.
She further stressed that patients who cannot be operated are those with tumors or those with portal vein thrombosis. Patients with advance disease will greatly benefit from this procedure, she added.
“If only it can be widely applied, it will really help improve outcomes,” De Villa concluded.