A team of leading doctors at Krishna Institute of Medical Sciences (KIMS) in Hyderabad have successfully treated 62-year old women from Rwanda suffering from liver cancer by adopting minimally invasive procedure for the first time in Andhra Pradesh.
The doctors at KIMS informed that a 62 year old woman from Rwanda was diagnosed with a tumour in her liver. Further investigations confirmed it was liver cancer. As the cancer was detected at the early stage, the doctors had decided to adopt a minimally invasive procedure called radiofrequency ablation to treat the problem.
Radiofrequency ablation is treatment for cancer without the need for major surgery of suffering the toxic side effects caused by chemotherapy or radiotherapy.
Radiofrequency ablation, sometimes referred to as RFA, is a minimally invasive treatment for cancer. It is an image-guided technique that heats and destroys cancer cells.
In radiofrequency ablation, imaging techniques such as ultrasound or computed tomography (CT) are used to help guide a needle electrode into the cancerous tumour, through a small nick in the skin.
High frequency electrical currents are then passed through the electrode, creating heat that destroys the cancer cells. At the end of the procedure the needle electrode is removed, and pressure is applied to stop any bleeding, while the opening in the skin is covered with a dressing. “This is the most advanced procedure to treat liver cancer patients. Moreover no sutures are needed in this procedure. This procedure takes about 10-30 minutes and patients can resume normal activities within a few days,” said Dr M V Chalapathi Rao, chief interventional radiologist at KIMS.
In this particular case the doctors have also conducted an MRI scan within 48 hours after performing the minimally invasive procedure to confirm if all of the tumour tissues are destroyed. This kind of minimally invasive RFA procedure can be performed only on patient who detected with cancer at the early stage, thereby avoiding major surgery, chemotherapy or radiotherapy, opined the doctor.