Can radiation therapy cure/kill cancer of the liver ?

External beam radiation is difficult to use with liver cancer due to the sensitivity of the normal liver. It is difficult to deliver significantly high enough doses to kill the cancer in the liver without damaging the rest of the normal tissue.

So, just a few years ago there was limited treatment for liver cancer, but that has significantly changed. There are now other treatments some based on radiation therapy, others not that have been effective. Treatment for liver cancer depend on the stage of the disease and whether it is a primary or secondary cancer.

Surgery is not always ruled out in the case of liver cancer. The liver is able to regenerate itself and surgery is performed using a laser that will seal any type of bleeding as they go along. So surgery is an option for liver cancer patients. But many patients are now being treated with RFA, chemoembolization, and proton therapy.

Some of the new tools now used to control or eliminate liver tumors include:

Proton Beam Therapy - a type of radiation that can be tightly controlled to deliver high dose radiation precisely to the correct location. There is far more control using the proton beam since it can now focus directly on the tumor and spare the surrounding tissue. Not all liver cancer patients are candidates for this treatment.

Proton Beam therapy to liver
http://www.medicinenet.com/proton_beam_t...

Proton Beam Therapy for the Treatment of Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC)
http://www.oncolink.com/conferences/arti...

Radiofrequency Ablation - Long thin electrode wires are guided by CT into a tumor, a current is sent through the wire and heats the tumor which is than 'ablated' or 'disintegrates'. This is non-invasive tool can be done on smaller symetrically shaped nodules and tumors.

RFA of Liver Tumors
http://www.radiologyinfo.org/en/info.cfm...

Chemoembolization - a cathetar is used to deliver high dose chemotherapy directly into the liver (instead of systemically)

Chemoembolization of the liver
http://www.radiologyinfo.org/en/info.cfm...

There are other treatments including cryoblation, isolated liver perfusion, alcohol injection, laser photocoagulation, radiation beads, and in some cases liver transplant.

Not all patients are candidates for these treatments so they should be discussed with the oncologist as possible options.

it depends how advanced the cancer is if caught early enough it can shrink the cancer but cancer of the liver is one of the most aggresive cancers a human can contract.

The treatment options are dictated by the stage of liver cancer and the overall condition of the patient. The only proven cure for liver cancer is liver transplantation for a solitary, small (<3cm) tumor. Now, many physicians may dispute this statement. They may argue that a small tumor can be surgically removed (partial hepatic resection) without the need for a liver transplantation. Moreover, they may claim that the one and three year survival rates for resection are perhaps comparable to those for liver transplantation.

However, most patients with liver cancer also have cirrhosis of the liver and would not tolerate liver resection surgery. But, they probably could tolerate the transplantation operation, which involves removal of the patient's entire diseased liver just prior to transplanting a donor liver. Furthermore, many patients who undergo hepatic resections will develop a recurrence of liver cancer elsewhere in the liver within several years. In fact, some experts believe that once a liver develops liver cancer, there is a tendency for that liver to develop other tumors at the same time (synchronous multicentric occurrence) or at a later time (metachronous multicentric occurrence).

The results of the various medical treatments (chemotherapy, chemoembolization, ablation, and proton beam therapy) remain disappointing. Moreover, for reasons noted earlier (primarily the variability in natural history), there have been no systematic study comparisons of the different treatments. As a result, individual patients will find that the various treatment options available to them depend largely on the local expertise.

How do we know if a particular treatment worked for a particular patient? Well, hopefully, the patient will feel better. However, a clinical response to treatment is usually defined more objectively. Thus, a response is defined as a decrease in the size of the tumor on imaging studies along with a reduction of the alpha-fetoprotein in the blood, if the level was elevated prior to treatment.

It would be a miracle.
Is organ transplant an option? For my mother it was not, the cancer was spreading fast.