{"id":389501,"date":"2026-04-13T08:17:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T08:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/389501\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T08:17:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T08:17:09","slug":"ablative-therapy-improves-overall-survival-for-supermassive-bile-duct-tumors-patients","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/389501\/","title":{"rendered":"Ablative therapy improves overall survival for ‘supermassive’ bile duct tumors patients"},"content":{"rendered":"

Original story from\u00a0The University of Texas\u00a0MD\u202fAnderson Cancer Center<\/a><\/p>\n

Radiation therapy yields promising outcomes for \u2018supermassive\u2019 bile duct tumors.<\/p>\n

A new study from researchers at The University of Texas MD\u202fAnderson Cancer Center demonstrates that a specialized high-dose type of radiation delivery may significantly improve outcomes for patients with large bile duct tumors in the liver, known as intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma.<\/p>\n

Published today in\u00a0Clinical Cancer Research<\/a>,\u00a0the retrospective study\u00a0was\u00a0led by\u00a0Ethan Ludmir, M.D.\u00a0associate professor,\u00a0and\u00a0Eugene Koay, M.D., Ph.D., professor, both\u00a0of\u00a0Gastrointestinal\u00a0Radiation Oncology.<\/p>\n

According to the\u00a0results,\u00a0patients treated with\u00a0this\u00a0radiation\u00a0had a median survival more than twice that of the patients treated with chemotherapy alone.<\/p>\n

\u201cTraditionally, patients with\u00a0very large\u00a0tumors\u00a0were not treated\u00a0with\u00a0radiation\u00a0due to safety concerns,\u201d\u00a0Ludmir\u00a0said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut our ability to more precisely deliver higher doses of radiation has dramatically improved over the last 10 to 15 years to the point that we can now treat these tumors safely. This study makes a compelling case that there is a very significant benefit from this approach.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why hasn\u2019t\u00a0this type of\u00a0intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma\u00a0been treated with radiation previously?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma forms tumors in the bile ducts of the liver, and some can grow larger than 10 centimeters \u2013 known as supermassive tumors.<\/p>\n

Up until about a decade ago, delivering a large enough radiation dose to impact a supermassive tumor would require a dose higher than the remaining healthy liver tissue could tolerate.<\/p>\n

Additionally, these tumors are often near other critical organs and structures, such as the stomach or bowels, which could be damaged by large doses of radiation.<\/p>\n

Historically, there also was a widespread belief that supermassive tumors were biologically different from smaller ones and that, even if radiation could achieve local control, it might not prolong survival.<\/p>\n

However, advanced radiation centers like UT MD Anderson now have the ability to deliver an ablative dose of radiation \u2013 high enough to eradicate tumors completely \u2013 to even these difficult-to-treat locations and deliver it accurately enough to minimize damage to the surrounding healthy tissue.<\/p>\n

What makes this study unique?<\/p>\n

Over the last 15 years, some patients at UT MD Anderson have been treated using this ablative radiation technique, but this study is the first to analyze outcomes for the approach.<\/p>\n

The relative rarity of these particular supermassive tumors means this trial likely represents the best possible evidence for this treatment strategy, the authors explained.<\/p>\n

The researchers also did comparisons on several biological aspects of these tumors and found they were not biologically different from smaller tumors.<\/p>\n

According to Koay, this led to their hypothesis that tumor size should not be a limiting factor in the use of radiation therapy.<\/p>\n

\u201cMolecular and histological analyses showed that these very large tumors are not fundamentally different from smaller ones,\u201d Koay said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a result, it\u00a0shouldn\u2019t\u00a0come as a surprise that they responded well to ablative radiation like their smaller counterparts.\u00a0This study has some limitations, but this is very compelling evidence that this approach is effective and safe in a patient population that has a need for better treatment options.\u201d<\/p>\n

What is the most significant data from this study?\u00a0<\/p>\n

At a median follow-up of 17.9 months,\u00a034\u00a0patients treated with ablative radiation in combination with chemotherapy had a\u00a0median\u00a0overall survival of\u00a028.7 months\u00a0compared to 11.9 months for\u00a029\u00a0patients with\u00a0chemotherapy\u00a0alone.<\/p>\n

The combination group also had lower rates of tumor-related liver failure, at 12.1% compared to 47.1%.<\/p>\n

The researchers\u00a0compared this data to qualifying patients in the National Cancer Database who received chemotherapy\u00a0alone, which had an overall survival of 11.6 months.<\/p>\n

Ablative radiation therapy also was well tolerated by patients, with no grade 4 or 5 adverse effects. Nine patients (26.5%) had manageable grade 3 radiation-induced liver disease and two patients had late-onset grade 3 gastrointestinal hemorrhage, which was treated.<\/p>\n

There were no other adverse effects above grade three.<\/p>\n

This article has been republished from the\u00a0following\u00a0materials<\/a>.\u00a0Material may have been edited for length and house style. For further information, please contact the cited source. Our press release publishing policy can be accessed\u00a0here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Original story from\u00a0The University of Texas\u00a0MD\u202fAnderson Cancer Center Radiation therapy yields promising outcomes for \u2018supermassive\u2019 bile duct tumors.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":389502,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[185626,163,85,185627,46],"class_list":{"0":"post-389501","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-ablative-therapy","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-intrahepatic-cholangiocarcinoma","12":"tag-israel"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=389501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389501\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/389502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}