Update on metastatic liver cancer treatments
 

The publication (Community Oncology) from which Hopeful extracted the article in the previous post also has a six page article on metastatic liver cancer treatments.
While most of the article is devoted to liver metastases from colorectal primary cancer there are a few comments in the last 2 pages on metastases from breast cancer & on two promissing treatments in trial using cancer cell invading viruses.

http://www.communityoncology.net/jou...es/0309567.pdf
Emerging therapies for metastatic carcinoma to the liver
Kenneth K. Tanabe, MD

EXTRACT:
There may be a few situations in which RFA is better than surgical resection. The first is in patients with small metastases from tumors of unfavorable histology, such as "isolated" breast cancer metastasis or "isolated" melanoma metastasis. The likelihood that these metastases are actually isolated is very low. Therefore, even though these metastases may be resectable, RFA is a much less morbid procedure than surgery and consequently may be a more reasonable treatment approach.

RFA may also be preferable to surgery in patients with small resectable metastasis if they have significant comorbidity. It’s reasonable to perform RFA in patients whose disease is unresectable but who appear to have a favorable tumor biology.

Novel therapies

Two novel treatments for liver metastases are now in clinical trials. The first—viral oncolysis—makes use of replicating viruses, in which a genetically engineered virus is introduced into a tumor cell and, in the process of producing hundreds of copies of itself, destroys the cell.22,23 The progeny virions liberated from the destroyed cancer cell then infect adjacent tumor cells in an ongoing, iterative process. The result is a dramatic reduction in liver tumor burden. One of the viruses being tested is a virus from Massachusetts General Hospital called rRp450.24 Another is a herpes simplex virus called NV1020 that is being developed by MediGene, Inc.25