Treating Cancer in the Liver скачать в хорошем качестве

Treating Cancer in the Liver

The liver is an amazing organ. Its capacity to heal is a silver lining for patients undergoing surgery to remove cancerous tumors. “Although it’s vitally important and you can’t live without your liver, you can remove up to 80% of a normal liver safely with low mortality rates and the liver will actually grow back to normal size,” says Dr. Mark Bloomston. Surgical oncologist on medical staff of Lee Memorial Health System, Mark Bloomston, says this regenerative ability allows doctors to re-operate multiple times if necessary. It also opens the opportunity for advanced techniques: staged procedures involving the use of chemotherapy. “We can put radioactive beads into the liver, we can do procedures to trick the liver into thinking it already had surgery. So the good side will start to grow and advance, so we can take out more liver at the time of surgery,” says Dr. Bloomston. In the coming decades, doctors hope the number of liver cancer cases in this country will drop. Hepatitis C is a driving force behind this disease, which is also impacted by alcoholic cirrhosis and morbid obesity. These are lifestyle issues which can be addressed through awareness. Until then, advanced techniques offer the best chance for a cure. “These tumors have to be removed to be cured. So if you can at least increase the number of patients eligible for curative therapies, by definition you’re going to get more cured,” says Dr. Bloomston. A dangerous and often deadly disease, surgeons are using advanced operations to help patients ‘out-live’ their liver cancer. View More Health Matters video segments at leememorial.org/healthmatters/ Lee Memorial Health System in Fort Myers, FL is the largest network of medical care facilities in Southwest Florida and is highly respected for its expertise, innovation and quality of care. For nearly a century, we’ve been providing our community with everything from primary care treatment to highly specialized care services and robotic assisted surgeries. Visit leememorial.org