Scientists have developed a procedure which could prolong the lives of people with primary or secondary liver tumors.

The procedure developed by Delcath Systems, the New York-based company, allows massive doses of chemotherapy drugs to reach the liver and kill the cancer cells without poisoning the rest of the body during chemotherapy by the way of temporarily diverting blood leaving the liver, science magazine New Scientist reported Friday.

The regime involves injecting the drug straight into the liver, while using catheters and balloons to divert the blood leaving it and this blood is then filtered to remove most of the drug.

The procedure uses catheters threaded through blood vessels in the thighs and neck, one of which delivers the drug into the hepatic artery, which supplies the liver while the inferior vena cava, which normally drains the liver, is blocked by a pair of balloons.

To maintain circulation through the liver, a tube runs through one of these balloons. Blood leaving the liver is forced into this tube and out of the body instead of heading for the heart. This blood is then passed through a filter that removes most of the drug, before being returned to the body through the jugular vein.

The drug is infused for about 30 minutes, and blood leaving the liver is filtered for an hour.

In an early trial on 13 patients, tumors disappeared or shrank by more than half in 10 of the patients within five weeks of their being given the new treatment, who survived for an average of two years.

Normally around 90 percent of people with inoperable secondary liver tumors die within eight months of being diagnosed.

The scientists of Delcath Systems have already begun a larger trial in collaboration with a team from the U.S. National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland.

(Xinhua News Agency September 29, 2007)