SBRT vs. Histrotripsy for Liver Mets
Hello,
I am weighing the options of treating my liver mets with either histotripsy or SBRT. I am in communication with 2 different physicians, one who treats with histotripsy and the other with SBRT.
The physician that uses histotripsy is still in the process of reviewing my images, and is expected to contact me soon as to whether I am a candidate for the procedure. So far, I have only communicated with the liaison that collects records and gathers info for the doctor.
The physician that treats using SBRT is eager to get things rolling with the tumors on my liver. She did my breast cancer radiation after the lumpectomy. She does not have much knowledge on histotripsy, so she couldn't tell me the benefits/downsides of doing SBRT over histotripsy. She seems certain that removing the tumors on my liver with SBRT will improve my chances of survival and may limit further metastatic spread.
I've been doing my own research, and it sounds as though histotripsy has less risks for damaging the liver vs. SBRT.
Does anyone have any information on these treatments? Is there one you would recommend over the other? Have you had either done before and what has been your experience, both short-term and long-term?
Thank you all in advance.
Comments
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@choosinghope - I don't have answers for you - my liver mets were too large and too many for local treatment. Fortunately, systemic treatment has taken care of them for now.
I'm going to follow this thread, because I'm interested in any responses you get. If/when I have a recurrence in the liver, I want to be able to consider local treatments, and i only recently ran across histotripsy. .
Here is another thread for local liver treatmets, including SBRT, y90, ablation, etc. In don't think I've seen histotripsy discussed, but it may be fairly new for liver mets.
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I follow as well because I was looking in to local treatment as well.
What I undestood of histotripsy is that you can stay on your medication while you are treated. But they can only treat metastasis up to 2,5 cm o 3.
And thank you Seeq for posting the link
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Hi all,
So I just had an ultrasound on my liver at the facility that does the histotripsy this past Friday. They got a picture of two of the three tumors (I think I have three?). There is one that is in a location that they couldn't see very well (top of liver, near the heart). The physician thinks he can do histotripsy on the two. The third, he isn't sure— said something about trying to find it again when I go in for the procedure. I will have to decide soon if I want to proceed with the procedure, or if I want to try something else.
According to him, histotripsy is more effective than SBRT at preventing recurrence of tumors on the liver. He didn't say why? I can only presume, from my own research, that SBRT has a tendency of leaving some parts of the margins of the tumor behind.
The report from the ultrasound scan: Lesion 1 measures 2.9 x 2.2 x 1.9 cm. Lesion 2 measures 0.8 x 0.8 x 0.6 cm.
As of right now, I am leaning towards getting the histotripsy treatment. If I get it done, it will happen sometime at the beginning of December.
I will update as things move forward.
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