Background: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the third leading cause of cancer deaths. Early-stage disease is treated with curative intent, but most patients present with advanced HCC, which carries a poor prognosis. Viscum album extracts (VAE) are used by cancer patients as an adjunct treatment or palliation.

Case Presentation: A 51-year-old female presented with relapsing multifocal HCC. She declined palliative treatment and commenced intravenous VAE treatment in conjunction with intravenous hepato-protective L-ornithine-L-aspartate (LOLA). She experienced a significant improvement of life-quality and performance status. After 3 months, a significant regression was noted on computerized tomography, and α-fetoprotein was in normal range. Imaging 11 months later confirmed a complete regression. The VAE and LOLA treatment continues to date. The patient had no other cancer-directed therapy. The regression is sustained for more than 5 years at publication, confirmed by regular imaging and serology. The patient is experiencing an unrestricted quality of life.

Conclusion: Complete regression of advanced HCC is rare. Responses of HCC to VAE treatment have been reported before. However, this is the first documented case with a complete and durable regression of an HCC under treatment with VAE. Further studies should evaluate VAE treatment in HCC, especially when administered in forms as reported here.

Download full-text PDF

Source
http://dx.doi.org/10.1159/000525409DOI Listing

Publication Analysis

Top Keywords

vae treatment
12
complete durable
8
hepatocellular carcinoma
8
treatment
8
viscum album
8
album extracts
8
advanced hcc
8
complete regression
8
hcc
7
vae
6

Similar Publications

While single-cell experiments provide deep cellular resolution within a single sample, some single-cell experiments are inherently more challenging than bulk experiments due to dissociation difficulties, cost, or limited tissue availability. This creates a situation where we have deep cellular profiles of one sample or condition, and bulk profiles across multiple samples and conditions. To bridge this gap, we propose BuDDI (BUlk Deconvolution with Domain Invariance).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Fulminant virus-associated encephalopathy (VAE) is a rare complication of viral infection that presents as acute brain dysfunction and requires respiratory support and/or vasoactive agents. However, the mechanism of VAE is undetermined. The mortality rate is high since there is no specific treatment for fulminant VAE.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Recognition and segmentation of brain tumours (BT) using MR images are valuable and tedious processes in the healthcare industry. Earlier diagnosis and localization of BT provide timely options to select effective treatment plans for the doctors and can save lives. BT segmentation from Magnetic Resonance Images (MRI) is considered a big challenge owing to the difficulty of BT tissues, and segmenting them from the healthier tissue is challenging when manual segmentation is done through radiologists.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • * Prone chest compressions were performed immediately during the surgery, allowing the patient to survive without any postoperative issues.
  • * The incident highlights the challenges of treating cardiac arrest due to a venous air embolism (VAE) in spinal surgery and suggests that prone chest compressions may be more effective than waiting to switch to supine positioning for CPR.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

SiRCle (Signature Regulatory Clustering) model integration reveals mechanisms of phenotype regulation in renal cancer.

Genome Med

December 2024

School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences, University of Queensland, Molecular Biosciences Building 76, St Lucia, QLD, 4072, Australia.

Background: Clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) tumours develop and progress via complex remodelling of the kidney epigenome, transcriptome, proteome and metabolome. Given the subsequent tumour and inter-patient heterogeneity, drug-based treatments report limited success, calling for multi-omics studies to extract regulatory relationships, and ultimately, to develop targeted therapies. Yet, methods for multi-omics integration to reveal mechanisms of phenotype regulation are lacking.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Want AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?

Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!