Pelican Cancer Foundation

Pelican Cancer Foundation

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
DONATE NOW
  • Home
  • About Us
    • About us
    • What we do
      • Bowel cancer
      • Colorectal Liver Metastases
      • Pseudomyxoma peritonei
      • Our Research
      • Our achievements
      • What’s next?
    • Who we are
      • Our board
      • Our team
      • Pelican Patrons
      • Job opportunities
    • Support Us
    • Keep in touch
    • Our annual accounts
  • Workshops
    • Pelican IMPACT
      • IMPACT – Completion & Evaluation
      • Workshops
      • IMPACT – Online resources
      • IMPACT – Partners and Sponsors
    • SPECC
      • SPECC – Completion & Evaluation
      • Workshops
      • SPECC – Online resources
      • SPECC – Partners and Sponsors
    • LOREC
    • TIPTOP
      • Workshops
      • TIPTOP – Online resources
      • Bob’s story (prostate cancer)
      • Andrew’s story (prostate cancer)
      • Alan’s story (prostate cancer)
      • Raymond’s story (prostate cancer)
    • What clinicians say about our courses
    • Faculty
    • Our sponsors
    • Become a sponsor
    • Request a course or topic
    • Give us feedback
    • Previous courses
  • Films
  • Research
    • Research strategy
    • Bowel cancer research
      • POLARS
      • MERCURY 2 (Low Rectal Cancer Study)
      • Deferral of surgery study
      • TATME
      • IMPRESS
      • TRIGGER
      • Papers of interest
      • Timing of surgery
      • AMSOEC
      • MINSTREL
      • Completed research
        • Perineal wound healing registry
        • Beyond TME
        • Validation of the LARS score
        • MARVEL: Evaluation of EMVI positive rectal cancer
        • FLEX
        • TME Physical Simulation Model
        • Total Mesorectal Excision (TME)
        • MERCURY research programme
    • Liver cancer research
      • Completed research
        • EORTC studies
      • SERENADE
      • Papers of interest
    • Peritoneal malignancy research
      • Colorectal Peritoneal Malignancy Database
      • Pseudomyxoma Pathology Atlas
    • Previous Research Areas
      • Prostate Cancer Research
        • Prostate cancer
        • Focal therapy and HIFU research
        • MRI research for prostate cancer
        • Prostate cancer colloquiums
        • FORECAST
        • Trachtomap
        • Papers of interest
      • Bladder cancer research
        • Bladder cancer
        • Papers of interest
    • Peer reviewers
    • Clinical trials
    • Information for researchers
      • Peer review process
      • Research review panel
      • Research Grant Application Guidance Notes
      • Terms and conditions of grants
      • Animals in medical research
      • Research costs
    • Surgical videos
  • For Patients
    • Patient stories
      • Anthony’s story (bowel cancer)
      • Elena’s story (bowel cancer)
      • Terry’s story (liver cancer)
      • Derrick’s story (liver cancer)
      • Alex’s story (colorectal cancer)
      • Cheryll’s story (rectal cancer)
      • Eileen’s story
      • Richard’s story – irrigation
      • Tom’s story – complete response
      • Advanced metastatic bowel cancer
    • What is an MDT?
      • What an MRI reveals
      • Reporting cancer outcomes
    • Bowel cancer
      • Our bowel cancer team
      • About bowel cancer treatment – TME
      • April – Bowel Cancer Awareness Month
      • Low rectal cancer
      • Complete response to chemoradiotherapy in rectal cancer
      • Frequently asked questions about bowel cancer
      • Irrigation for colostomies
      • A patient’s advice
      • Symptom checker
      • Bowel cancer – useful contacts
    • Liver cancer
      • Our liver cancer team
      • About liver cancer treatment
      • Interventional radiology
      • Liver cancer – frequently asked questions
      • Carcinoid and neuroendocrine tumours
      • Liver cancer – want to read more?
    • Pseudomyxoma peritonei
    • Getting a second opinion
    • Clinical trials
      • Current clinical trials
    • Tell us your story
    • Still got questions about cancer?
    • Links
  • Support us
    • Make a donation
      • Make a donation
      • Why donate to Pelican?
      • Donate shares
      • Donate in memory
      • How your donations are spent
    • Fundraising
      • Our fundraisers
      • Fundraising ideas
      • Fundraising challenges
      • Fundraising resources
      • Our events
    • Leaving a Legacy
    • Volunteering Opportunities
    • Could you host a Pelican Talk?
    • Become a Corporate Charity Partner
    • Pelican Film Society
  • Shop
  • Events
  • Contact us

Interventional radiology

Here Dr Graham Plant, Consultant Interventional Radiologist at Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, explains treatment options provided by interventional radiologists*:

In addition to high quality classical surgical techniques, including open and laparoscopic approaches, we employ a variety of other methods to either help with these approaches, or to treat tumours directly. Many of these are performed using some kind of imaging (X-Ray) guidance to allow us to precisely target the effects. These procedures are performed by Interventional Radiologists, in the X-ray department, in either their dedicated Interventional theatre suite or in the CT scanner dedicated to these cases.

By using these additional options we are able to widen the group of patients that we are able to help – allowing us to include those who are too unwell for a conventional operation, where the tumours are inaccessible, or where the operation would carry unacceptable risks.

These approaches include:

  • Thermal ablation (MTA)
  • Precision Trans-Arterial Chemo-Embolization (TACE)
  • Portal Vein Embolization (PVE)
  • Biliary drainage and stenting
  • Hepatic artery embolization
  • Biopsy and drainage

Thermal ablation (MTA)

Thermal ablation is the treatment of tumours by heating them, in place, via a needle directly placed into the tumour, using a scanner for guidance of the needle. When we started treating patients with this technique, over twelve years ago, we used Radio-Frequency for the ablation (RFA), but we have switched over to using a needle carrying microwaves in the last few years. We feel that this technique, Microwave thermal Ablation (MTA), has advantages over RFA for the patients we treat, and we use it for both primary and secondary tumours of liver and lung. This operation is carried out under a general anaesthetic.

Precision Trans-Arterial Chemo-Embolization (TACE)

There are some tumours that are unsuitable for surgery, for a variety of reasons, and some of these may be treated using chemotherapy delivered directly into the tumour and surrounding liver, via the blood stream. This technique, TACE, involves a catheter being guided along the arteries, from the top of the leg, to the appropriate positions in the liver under X-ray guidance, and then tiny plastic beads, which contain a chemotherapeutic agent, usually Doxorubicin or Irinotecan, are injected. These beads fill the arteries to the tumour, blocking off the blood supply to the tumour, and then release the chemotherapy, in high concentration, just where it’s needed, minimizing the dose to the rest of the body. This procedure is often undertaken in a number of stages, often weeks or months apart, to give a sustained dose to the tumour(s).

Portal Vein Embolization (PVE)

In some patients the size or positions of the tumours means that to remove them successfully a large amount of liver must be taken out with the tumour. In these cases we are concerned that the remaining amount of liver will not be able to cope with all the work being imposed on it, particularly immediately after a major operation. In these cases we employ PVE to block off some of the blood supply to the part of the liver that we plan to remove approximately a month prior to the operation. The rest of the liver will take up the load after the PVE, it will increase in size and, more importantly, will become more efficient at all of its processes so that when the surgery is undertaken, the patient will have a better, safer and shorter post-operative period.

Biliary drainage and stenting

The biliary tree provides the route out of the liver for bile and digestive enzymes. These allow us to process and digest food in the gut. If the biliary tree is blocked, by gallstones, infection or tumours, patients become jaundiced and unwell, and are unable to digest food properly.

In these cases it may be possible to bypass the blockage by the insertion of plastic tubes, or expanding metal springs (stents) to allow recovery. These may be inserted from above, through the liver, by Interventional Radiologists, or from below, via the gut, a technique known as Endoscopic Retrograde Cholangio-Pancreatography (ERCP) which in this hospital is performed by our gastroenterologist colleagues.

Hepatic artery embolization

If patients bleed into the liver, (or indeed elsewhere in the body), due to a tumour, trauma or other causes, we may employ embolization. This technique, carried out under X-Ray guidance in our radiological operating theatre, involves a catheter being manipulated along the arteries from the top of the leg, to the bleeding points and the artery at the point of bleeding being blocked by a variety of plugs. This very effective treatment may be performed under sedation and local anaesthetic only, as it causes very little discomfort. It may however be the fastest way to stop some kinds of bleeding, particularly in inaccessible parts of the body, or in very sick patients, who may be unable to withstand a general anaesthetic and open surgical procedure.

Biopsy & drainage

From time to time it may be necessary to obtain tissue from a tumour, to allow us to plan the appropriate treatment. There are a variety of ways to do this, and one is an image guided biopsy, where a fine needle is placed in a tumour, using X-ray or ultrasound guidance, under local anaesthetic. We are very selective on whom we do this, because we know there is a risk of spreading the tumour by seeding along the track of the biopsy. However, in appropriate, selected, cases we undertake these simple procedures.

In some patients we discover a collection of fluid, possibly blood, infection or bile in the abdomen. These are best treated in the majority of cases by placing a thin flexible drainage tube into the fluid and allowing it to drain out of the body into a closed bag. We perform these procedures in the same way, using a scanner to guide us, and under sedation and local anaesthetic. The tube can be left for a few days until the fluid stops being produced and then it is removed.

The use of these interventional and operative procedures also allows much greater flexibility in the way we manage patients, and allows us to react to some of the more complex and unpredictable ways that disease and especially cancer affects us.

In addition to all the procedures undertaken in the X-ray department by Interventional Radiologists, most patients will also be helped by the expert care of our diagnostic Radiological colleagues. Indeed the vast majority of patients will have far greater contact with, and experience of, the diagnostic side of our work, as they will have a variety of body scans and x-rays to allow us all to identify disease, pinpoint its location, plan the best treatment for it and then follow up the results.

Graham Plant

August 2011

*Please note that this applies to Basingstoke practice. If you have questions or concerns about your specific diagnosis and treatment, you should talk to your specialist nurse.

Pelican Cancer Foundation Follow

Driving innovation and advancing surgery to help patients live well, for longer.

Pelican_Cancer
pelican_cancer Pelican Cancer Foundation @pelican_cancer ·
8 Feb

Excited to be holding our 5th annual workshop for Bowel Cancer Screening Practitoners.

Reply on Twitter 1623258266829455362 Retweet on Twitter 1623258266829455362 1 Like on Twitter 1623258266829455362 5 Twitter 1623258266829455362
pelican_cancer Pelican Cancer Foundation @pelican_cancer ·
28 Nov

👇 Available now - http://pelicancancervideos.org
🎥Complexity and decision making for patients with low rectal cancer

Mr Mark Gudgeon, Professor Heald & Mr Moran
@MGudgeon @ProfessorHeald @Brendan92855812

Reply on Twitter 1597119096096784384 Retweet on Twitter 1597119096096784384 2 Like on Twitter 1597119096096784384 2 Twitter 1597119096096784384
pelican_cancer Pelican Cancer Foundation @pelican_cancer ·
26 Nov

👇 Available now - http://pelicancancervideos.org
🎥Complexity and decision making for patients with low rectal cancer

Mr Mark Gudgeon, Professor Heald & Mr Moran
@MGudgeon @ProfessorHeald @Brendan92855812

Reply on Twitter 1596393313757642752 Retweet on Twitter 1596393313757642752 1 Like on Twitter 1596393313757642752 1 Twitter 1596393313757642752
Load More...

To view our privacy policy - click here.
Registered charity no: 1141911

Copyright © 2023 · Outreach Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in