Taipei hospital touts minimally invasive cancer treatment success

Taipei, March 7 (CNA) Taipei Veterans General Hospital (TVGH) held a press conference on Wednesday to tout the recent successes of its Center of Advanced Image-Guided Intervention established under the Radiology Department in 2023.

The center integrates medical imaging expert teams and minimally invasive medical treatments to provide patients with customized treatments.

Shen Shu-huei (沈書慧), director of the interventional radiology group under the Radiology Department explained that minimally invasive intervention for cancer treatment eliminates local tumor tissue and is guided by imaging tools.

Compared with traditional open surgery, these treatments are less invasive, leave minimal incisions, take less time to recover from and are less painful, Shen said.

One such treatment method highlighted at the press event was cryoablation, which has been used in over 600 cases since the hospital first introduced it in 2010.

A 73-year-old man surnamed Kuo (郭) shared his experience of the treatment.

A 3 cm tumor was discovered on Kuo's right kidney when he was 61 years old and a doctor initially told him it would be necessary to remove the fully-functional kidney because of the tumor's location.

Instead, the TVGH medical team used cryoablation to deal with the tumor. Kuo was able to leave the hospital the day after the treatment, with his kidney intact and functioning, and there has been no sign of relapse over the past decade.

Of around 300 cases diagnosed as kidney cancer, around 95 percent were controlled with the first treatment and up to 99 percent were brought under control with repeated treatment.

According to studies, the new treatment's medical effect is equivalent to surgery when treating tumors less than 4 cm in length. It also has no dosage limits unlike radioactive treatments, so the process can be repeated in the event of a relapse, Shen added.

The treatment is mainly used for localized kidney tumors, as well as tumors in the liver, lungs, musculoskeleton and lymphatic metastasis.

However, cryoablation cannot be used for patients with coagulopathy (bleeding disorder), when the cancer has invaded the intestines or endovascular cancer, Shen said.

In cryoablation, a probe is guided to the tumor tissue using imaging, after which the argon-helium at the tip of the probe is rapidly compressed, which reduces the temperature to -160 degrees Celsius, forming ice crystals on the tumor and disrupting it, Shen explains.

The TVGH's Radiology Department chief Chiou Hong-jen (邱宏仁) said image guidance is essential for minimally invasive treatments and is not limited to X-rays. As such, the unit is set to be renamed the Medical Imaging Department after official approval from the Veterans Affairs Council.