Liver Cancer Surgery in Coimbatore

• For many years, treatment of liver cancer has been a complex maze. Both patients and doctors are confused by the myriad treatment modalities available for this treatment. In the year 2009, we did a focussed work on this matter to evolve a simplified paradigm that included all the available research work on the diagnosis and management of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC)

We call this the "Trifold decision making approach" - which took into account patient factors, tumour factors and liver factors. 

After 17 years, we have applied this paradigm to hundreds of patients guiding them to the appropriate treatments. Our longest liver cancer survivors have crossed 8 years of life, acknowledging the success of our paradigm.

The right choice of treatment:

Liver cancer treatment hinges on the right decision at the point of diagnosis. Mistakes in evaluation by inexperienced teams can compromise care in the long run.

There are only 2 curative methods of treatment: Liver resections and liver transplant. Curative treatment refers to therapies that can completely remove or destroy all detectable tumour tissue and offer a realistic chance of long-term survival or cure, rather than only slowing the disease.

We offer liver resections of all types in the treatment of liver cancer. Dr. Ilango Sethu specialises in extreme liver resections and resections of blood vessels for cancer. We also treat cancers which have ruptured because of size and provide emergency surgery for tumour control.

We also provide liver transplant services for patients with liver cancer. We offer both living donor and deceased donor liver transplantation for liver cancer with a high degree of success. We provide a multidisciplinary approach to advanced liver cancers that may benefit from liver transplantation.

Important tips to know in liver cancer:

• Do not take a liver biopsy especially when the cancer is limited to the liver. A liver biopsy may induce bleeding and breach the cancer. It may also prevent cure as it allows the tumour to spread.
• Good CT or MRI along with Whole body PET is needed. Imaging must help plan every small aspect of treatment.
• A bilirubin of > 3 mg/dl in a patient with liver cancer will need liver transplantation. 17 years of experience have taught us this lesson. The chance of liver failure is high in these patients. So we offer these patients early liver transplantation.
• A lot of people are worried about liver resection being a major surgery. We assure you, that it is not. Liver resection has become very standard surgery and with liver transplant experience, we have become better and better at resections and we are able to make patients better.
• Timely treatment matters. A lot of bad results in liver cancer comes from delayed treatment rather than non-availability of treatment.