title: Comparative study of different interventional therapies for primary liver cancer.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To compare the therapeutic effect of three types of inter-ventional management for primary liver cancer.
  
  
  METHODS
  A total of 468 patients with primary liver cancer were randomly allocated to the following three groups: 138 cases treated with chemotherapy alone using mitomycin C, adriamycin and 5-FU (group A); 158 cases treated with chemoembolization using lipiodol (group B); and 172 cases with chemoembolization using lipiodol and gelfoam (group C). All patients were angiographically and sonographically followed-up.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In group C, 67.5% patients had AFP value decreased by > 50%, which was much higher than the 43.3% in group B and 32.2% in group A. Tumor size reduction by ≥ 50% occurred in 20.3% of patients in group A, 41.2% of patients in group B and 44.8% of patients in group C. The intergroup differences between group A and group B or C were significant (P < 0.01). The 1-year and 3-year survival rates were 20.5% ± 3.6% and 1.9% ± 2.4% for group A, 51.3% ± 4.4% and 10.1% ± 4.9% for group B, and 63.0% ± 2.4% and 13.9% ± 5.0% for group C, respectively. The differences between all three groups were significant (P < 0.05). The mean survival time for patients in groups A, B and C were 9.6 mo, 16.1 mo and 17.9 mo, respectively.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Chemoembolization with lipiodol and gelfoam was the most effective therapy for primary liver cancer in this study. The position of the embolization should be far and middle sections of the hepatic artery, and the proximal section should be reserved as the route of the next intra-arterial chemoembolization.
authors.affiliation: Qi Liu, Yu-Chen Jia, Jian-Ming Tian, Zhen-Tang Wang, Hua Ye, Ji-Jin Yang, Fei Sun, Department of Radiology, Changhai Hospital, Second Military Medical University, Shanghai 200433, China.
authors.forename: Q
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Qi Liu, Yu-Chen Jia, Jian-Ming Tian, Zhen-Tang Wang, Hua Ye, Ji-Jin Yang, Fei Sun, Department of Radiology, Changhai Hospital, Second Military Medical University, Shanghai 200433, China.
authors.forename: Y C
authors.initials: YC
authors.lastname: Jia
authors.affiliation: Qi Liu, Yu-Chen Jia, Jian-Ming Tian, Zhen-Tang Wang, Hua Ye, Ji-Jin Yang, Fei Sun, Department of Radiology, Changhai Hospital, Second Military Medical University, Shanghai 200433, China.
authors.forename: J M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Tian
authors.affiliation: Qi Liu, Yu-Chen Jia, Jian-Ming Tian, Zhen-Tang Wang, Hua Ye, Ji-Jin Yang, Fei Sun, Department of Radiology, Changhai Hospital, Second Military Medical University, Shanghai 200433, China.
authors.forename: Z T
authors.initials: ZT
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Qi Liu, Yu-Chen Jia, Jian-Ming Tian, Zhen-Tang Wang, Hua Ye, Ji-Jin Yang, Fei Sun, Department of Radiology, Changhai Hospital, Second Military Medical University, Shanghai 200433, China.
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ye
authors.affiliation: Qi Liu, Yu-Chen Jia, Jian-Ming Tian, Zhen-Tang Wang, Hua Ye, Ji-Jin Yang, Fei Sun, Department of Radiology, Changhai Hospital, Second Military Medical University, Shanghai 200433, China.
authors.forename: J J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Qi Liu, Yu-Chen Jia, Jian-Ming Tian, Zhen-Tang Wang, Hua Ye, Ji-Jin Yang, Fei Sun, Department of Radiology, Changhai Hospital, Second Military Medical University, Shanghai 200433, China.
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Sun
keywords: 5-fluorouracil gelfoam; Adriamycin; Chemoembo-lization; Lipiodol; Liver neoplasms/therapy; Mitomycine; Therapeutic