RFA joins arsenal for breast cancer metastases in the liver

In patients for whom surgery is not an option, percutaneous radio-frequency ablation offers a viable alternative for treating breast cancer metastatic disease in the liver.

Researchers from 12 centers participating in the tumor radio-frequency ablation Italian network (TRAIN) treated 102 patients with breast cancer, using the ablation technique. Under ultrasound or CT guidance, they applied RFA to tumors ranging from 0.8 to 5 cm in diameter. Results were presented at the 2004 RSNA meeting.

Using the Kaplan-Meier method, the researchers reported survival rates ranging from 95.2% at one year to 29.8% at five years. They completed RFA of tumors in 91.2% of the patients after 121 treatment sessions, and the primary effectiveness rate on a lesion-by-lesion basis was 86.9.