Outcomes of Palliative RT to Liver in Liver Metastases

Abstract

Introduction: Various techniques are available to treat and alleviate pain and other symptoms in liver metastasis (LM) or advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients. One of such technique is the external beam radiotherapy to whole liver. This study aimed to evaluate the feasibility, efficacy, tolerability and patient’s reaction to external beam radiotherapy (EBRT) in palliation of symptoms and quality of life (QoL) LM patients or HCC patients.

Material and Method: A total of 50 patient of either liver metastasis or HCC were included and planned on single 8Gy/fraction to whole liver radiotherapy. Ultrasonographic guided marking of liver was done prior to treatment and pretreatment dexamethasone and antiemetic was given. Evaluation was done at 1 week and 1 month after the end of treatment.

Results: After the whole liver radiotherapy, significant improvement was reported in the bilirubin level (68%), pain level (75.5%), and nausea (32%). Talking about the quality of life, the radiotherapy was reported to found potentially effective in enhancing the quality of life among the patients. Greatest percentage improvementwas reported for pain (75.6%), Global health status (39.6%), physical functioning (32.4%), rolefunctioning (36%), social functioning (36%) and appetite loss (30.6%).