Heat is the best way to fight inoperable liver cancer. This is the conclusion of a long-term study at the Frankfurt University Hospital. For the study, data from 1045 patients with hepatocellular carcinoma who underwent minimally invasive treatment at the hospital between 1993 and 2020 were evaluated. Two methods of thermal ablation, which destroys cancer cells by overheating, were compared with local drug treatment.

Microwave ablation, which has been used in Frankfurt since 2008, performed best. In this procedure, the water molecules in the tumor tissue are heated to such an extent that the cells die. Of the 227 patients treated, 45 percent were still alive after five years. The five-year survival rate was a good 25 percent when microwave ablation was combined with transarterial chemoembolization.

In the latter, coagulation-promoting drugs are directed into the tumor with a catheter, which is thereby cut off from the blood supply. Microwave ablation replaced laser-induced thermotherapy; Of the 25 people to whom it was applied, five were still alive after five years.

The average survival rate was only one year when patients were subjected to chemoembolization alone. However, this approach was only chosen if the cancer was already too advanced for thermal ablation; those affected therefore had worse chances from the outset.