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Patients in Northwest Indiana now have access to a new liver cancer treatment at Franciscan Health Munster. The hospital is the first in the region to offer Boston Scientific's TheraSphere Yttrium-90 (Y-90) treatment, aimed at tumors that are too large for surgical removal.
"TheraSphere Y-90 can be a treatment that shrinks the tumor size such that the patient isn't cured by that, but they then become a candidate for other therapies such as surgery and transplant, which may be curative," said Carl Valentin, MD, a diagnostic radiologist at Franciscan Health Munster who performs the procedure.
The therapy uses glass microspheres infused with radioactive Yttrium-90. This outpatient procedure involves injecting these radioactive microspheres directly into the tumor through a catheter inserted via an artery in the leg and guided into the liver. This method targets the tumor while preserving healthy tissue.
"It's a radioactive therapy, but it's one that instead of being targeted from outside of the body, it's targeted from inside the tumor through direct catheterization of the arteries," Dr. Valentin explained.
Clinical data from Boston Scientific indicates a 93% three-year survival rate for patients who undergo this treatment followed by transplant or liver resection.
For further details or to schedule an appointment, contact Franciscan Health Cancer Center Munster at 219-922-4095.
