Laser zaps liver tumors in breast cancer patients

When breast cancer advances, it can spread (that is, metastasize) to the liver. German researchers now report that laser therapy, which can be performed on an outpatient basis, suppresses these liver tumors and is as effective as surgery for extending survival.

The technique, called laser-induced interstitial thermotherapy (LITT), heats and kills tumor cells. In 232 women with breast cancer who had a total of 578 liver metastases, LITT resulted in average survival of nearly 5 years after diagnosis, the researchers report in the medical journal Radiology.

Average survival of breast cancer patients after a diagnosis of liver metastases is normally 4 to 8 months, Dr. Martin G. Mack of University Hospital Frankfurt and colleagues note. With chemotherapy and hormonal treatment, the current "mainstay" of treatment for these patients, they add, survival averages 4 to 17 months.

In the current study, tumor progression was seen in fewer than 5 percent of patients 6 months after LITT, and no new tumors developed. Average survival after the first LITT treatment was 4.2 years, and the complication rate was low.

LITT is less invasive and less expensive than surgery, Mack and colleagues note, and it does not preclude the simultaneous use of chemotherapy or hormone therapy.

Moreover, the team points out, the less-invasive technique does not trigger the temporary immune suppression seen with major surgery.

The researchers also found no significant difference in survival after LITT between patients with and without disease that had spread to bone.

"LITT is a safe and effective treatment for well-selected patients with liver metastases from breast cancer and is improving the survival of the patients," they conclude. "A major advantage," they add, "is that it can be easily performed with local anesthesia in an outpatient setting and has a low complication rate."

SOURCE: Radiology, November 2004.