The OHSU Knight Cancer Institute offers people with liver cancer every available treatment, including immunotherapy and targeted therapy. When you come to the Knight, you can count on:

• Care from a team of specialists who work together
• Specialists who meet weekly to pool their expertise one patient at a time
• The most advanced techniques for delivering targeted radiation therapy
• The only hospital in the Pacific Northwest with hepatic arterial infusion (HAI) therapy
• Oregon’s only liver transplant center
• Access to clinical trials for promising new treatments

Surgery

We have one of the largest robotic surgery departments on the West Coast. For liver cancer, we use a range of techniques depending on your needs.

Partial hepatectomy

In a partial hepatectomy, surgeons remove a small section of the liver. In most cases, the remaining liver adapts. It can grow back to its original size in about three months.

Extended and multi-stage hepatectomy

In extended and multi-stage hepatectomy, surgeons remove a larger section of liver in one or several sessions. In most cases, the remaining liver adapts and can grow back to its original size.

Liver transplant

With a liver transplant, surgeons remove the liver and replace it with a healthy one from a deceased donor. This surgery is not an option for most cancer patients. You might qualify if you have a type of liver cancer called hepatocellular carcinoma. OHSU is home to Oregon’s only liver transplant center.

Radiation therapy

Radiation therapy uses beams of energy to destroy cancer cells. At the Knight, we use radiation therapy to:

• Remove tumors
• Shrink tumors before a liver transplant
• Relieve symptoms such as pain, nausea or bleeding

To treat liver cancer, Knight doctors use an advanced technique called stereotactic body radiation therapy, or SBRT. Advantages include:

• Less damage to healthy tissue because radiation is targeted
• More effective treatment because of higher radiation doses
• Shorter treatment time, with five or fewer treatments
• Fewer side effects, including less pain after treatment

Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy medications kill or disable cancer cells. They are often given by mouth or IV, and travel through the body in the bloodstream. 

Traditional chemotherapy usually doesn’t work well to shrink liver tumors, though. Instead, chemotherapy may be combined with another treatment, such as embolization, or given through a process called hepatic arterial infusion. 

Hepatic arterial infusion (HAI)

The Knight Cancer Institute is one of the few West Coast cancer centers offering hepatic arterial infusion, or HAI. This therapy is a safe treatment for cancer in the liver, especially cancer that has spread from the colon or rectum.

Doctors place a pump inside your belly to deliver a powerful dose of chemotherapy right to your liver. HAI can shrink liver tumors, extend life and relieve symptoms.

Embolization

Embolization uses tiny beads to block the blood supply to liver tumors, starving cancer cells while protecting most normal cells. 

We might recommend embolization if:

• You have several liver tumors.
• You have a large tumor that cannot be removed with surgery.
• You are waiting for a liver transplant.

We offer three types of embolization:

Arterial embolization

In arterial embolization, your doctor inserts a catheter — a thin, flexible tube — into a groin artery and guides it to the liver. Once the catheter is in place, the doctor injects tiny particles into the artery to block the blood supply to tumors.

Transarterial chemoembolization

Transarterial chemoembolization, or TACE, combines embolization with chemotherapy. Your doctor uses a catheter to inject tiny beads holding chemotherapy drugs into your liver. The beads block the blood supply to tumors, then release a dose of cancer-fighting drugs.

Radioembolization

Radioembolization combines embolization with radiation therapy. Your doctor uses a catheter to place tiny beads that hold a radioactive material, yttrium-90, into the liver. The beads block the blood supply to tumors, then deliver a dose of radiation directly to the cancer cells. This treatment is also known as selective internal radiation therapy, which is a type of brachytherapy (radiation therapy placed inside the body).

Targeted therapy

Targeted therapy uses cancer-fighting medications made to destroy specific cancer cells. Targeted therapy for liver cancer blocks proteins that help tumors grow or that help form blood vessels that feed the tumor. 

Our team uses targeted therapy to treat liver tumors that can’t be safely removed with surgery. We also use it to slow tumor growth, to lengthen life and to relieve symptoms for patients with advanced liver cancer.

Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy medications harness your body’s immune system to find and kill cancer cells, while largely avoiding healthy cells. 

Learn more

• Treating liver cancer, American Cancer Society
• Liver Cancer Treatment, National Cancer Institute