Radioimmunotherapy in treatment of unresectable hepatoma—A report of 43 cases

Abstract

Forty-three patients with surgically verified unresectable hepatoma had been treated by radioimmunotherapy (RIT) using131I antiferritin antibidy as a part of multimodality treatment during 1985–1990. The short-and long-term responses were compared with those in control group of 39 patients with unresectable hepatoma receiving conventional multimodality treatment in the same period. The rates of the tumor ahrinkage, serum AFP decline and sequence resection were 67.4% (29/43), 69.6% (16/23) and 30.2% (13/43) respectively, which were significantly higher than those in control group [23.1% (15/39), 40.0% (8/20) and 10.3% (4/39), respectively]. The 1-, 3- and 5-year survival rates were 61.5%, 40.4% and 35.4%, respectively, for the RIT group, and 51.2%, 20.1% and 15.5%, respectrely, for the control group. The tumor size, dose of RIT and sequence resection were identified as significant factors (P=0.005, 0.025 and 0.006, respectively, with Cox analysis model in 13 influencing factors. The results indicate that RIT was an effective one in multimodality treatment, particularly in the conversion of unresectable to resectable tumor.