DEB-TACE, not dubstep
I was looking at an article posted by Ward Plunet about a new cone-beam CT technique and I couldn’t decide if the ScienceDaily article was emphasizing the right point or not. http://goo.gl/9RDIL
The new technique utilizes a C-arm CT, i.e., a more portable version that is used for fluoroscopy or interventional radiology.
The newer DPCBCT scans, in which X-rays are detected by a device the size of a large laptop that can be placed directly below or above the operating room table, have the added advantage of being performed in the same room, or interventional radiology suite, as patients getting chemoembolization. (emphasis added). I think the ScienceDaily article could be mistaken that the article is saying that this is better than MRI. I think the article could emphasize that this technique takes advantage of the fact that the patient needs fluoroscopy anyway. I can’t get to the journal article so I don’t know the details.
Intraprocedural C-Arm Dual-Phase Cone-Beam CT: Can It Be Used to Predict Short-term Response to TACE with Drug-eluting Beads in Patients with Hepatocellular Carcinoma?
Loffroy et al Radiology 2012 http://goo.gl/XEf7N
Nevertheless, I want to focus on the intervention that they are talking about, which is doxorubicin-eluting bead trans-arterial chemoembolization (DEB-TACE).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcatheter_arterial_chemoembolization
The figures below are taken from:
Locoregional drug delivery using image-guided intra-arterial drug eluting bead therapy.
Lewis AL, Dreher MR.
J Control Release. 2012 Jul 20;161(2):338-50. doi: 10.1016/j.jconrel.2012.01.018. Epub 2012 Jan 21. http://goo.gl/csyNe
The cartoon shows how a catheter is fed (typically via the femoral artery) to the hepatic artery. From there a large vessel is selected that is feeding a tumor. Drug eluting beads are then injected there. The next figure shows empty and full beads (the rows have different sizes) under a microscope. B has doxorubicin and C has mitoxantrone. The next figure shows a CT with the radiopaque beads being injected. What the Radiology article reports is a new way to image this step with the C-arm and not the big, multi-slice CT that you might get for your head or thorax. There’s a mircoCT of a pig liver after the injection is finished.
Here’s the big CT I was talking about.
https://plus.google.com/+sciencesunday/posts/gEDCoF5hgCd
More on CT:
Medical Imaging 101 pt 2: CT
When I can access the full article, I hope to update this post. Until then, enjoy the rest of #ScienceSunday
very nice.
Thanks Ward Plunet, thanks for all of your great posts, and thanks for pointing me to this.
Thanks for the expert dissection of the process, Chad Haney . My take was that the immediate feedback on the chemoembolization is the key feature. The patient does not have to wait a month to find out. Agree?
Yes. I just think that it could have been presented a little better. When I can get the full article I can see what your pals at Hopkins intended to report/emphasize.
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