Local therapeutic treatments for focal liver disease.

Patients diagnosed with primary hepatic malignancies or metastases to the liver remain a difficult population to treat. A small percentage of these people can undergo surgical resection or transplantation. The remaining nonsurgical aggregate does not often benefit from conventional radiation and chemotherapy; minimally invasive means either to cure or palliate these patients are a requirement for complete cancer care. This article discusses image-guided local therapies used to treat this difficult patient population, focusing predominantly on radiofrequency ablation.