Prospective study of arterial infusion chemotherapy followed by radiofrequency ablation for the treatment of liver metastasis of gastric cancer.

This prospective study was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of hepatic arterial infusion chemotherapy (HAIC) with use of an implanted port followed by radiofrequency (RF) ablation for the treatment of liver metastasis of gastric cancer. Seven patients without extrahepatic metastasis were enrolled. The maximum tumor size was less than 3 cm in one patient and 3.2-6.0 cm in the other six patients (mean, 4.4 cm +/- 1.5). Two patients had single lesions and the other five patients had two to six lesions each. The maximum tumor size was reduced to 3 cm or less (mean, 2.4 cm +/- 0.4; P < .03) after HAIC in all patients. The total number of tumors was reduced from 25 to 16. RF ablation was performed for all residual liver tumors, resulting in complete tumor necrosis. All but one patient are still living without intrahepatic recurrence, with a median survival time of 16.5 months.