Radiation therapy for liver cancer

Radiation therapy uses high-energy rays to kill cancer cells. There are different kinds of radiation therapy.

External beam radiation therapy

This type of radiation therapy focuses radiation delivered from outside the body on the cancer. This can sometimes be used to shrink liver tumors to relieve symptoms such as pain, but it is not used as often as other local treatments such as ablation or embolization. Although liver cancer cells are sensitive to radiation, this treatment can't be used at very high doses because normal liver tissue is also easily damaged by radiation.

Before your treatments start, the radiation team will take careful measurements to determine the correct angles for aiming the radiation beams and the proper dose of radiation. Radiation therapy is much like getting an x-ray, but the radiation is stronger. The procedure itself is painless. Each treatment lasts only a few minutes, although the setup time – getting you into place for treatment – usually takes longer. Most often, radiation treatments are given 5 days a week for several weeks.

With newer radiation techniques, doctors can better target liver tumors while reducing the radiation to nearby healthy tissues. This may make it more effective and reduce side effects.

Three-dimensional conformal radiation therapy (3D-CRT): 3D-CRT uses special computers to map the location of the tumor(s) precisely. Radiation beams are then shaped and aimed at the tumor(s) from several directions, which makes it less likely to damage normal tissues.

Stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT): Instead of giving small doses of radiation each day for several weeks, SBRT uses very focused beams of high-dose radiation given on one or a few days. Beams are aimed at the tumor from many different angles. To target the radiation precisely, the person is put in a specially designed body frame for each treatment. 

Radioembolization

As mentioned in the "Embolization therapy" section, a newer treatment technique is to inject small radioactive beads into the hepatic artery. They lodge in the liver near tumors and give off small amounts of radiation that travel only a short distance.

Side effects of radiation therapy

Side effects of external radiation therapy might include sunburn-like skin problems where the radiation enters the body, nausea, vomiting, and fatigue. Often these go away after treatment. Radiation might also make the side effects of chemotherapy worse.