Siemens Healthcare is collaborating with Sirtex, a global healthcare business based in Australia focusing on oncology, to further develop a new technique to treat liver cancer. The two companies recently presented an educational symposium on the technique, known as Selective Internal Radiation Therapy (SIRT), at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, held May 29 to June 2 in Chicago.

According to the companies, the SIRT method treats liver cancer internally by injecting millions of radioactive microspheres developed by Sirtex into advanced primary and secondary liver tumors. The microspheres are actually extremely small resin beads containing radioactive Yttrim-90, which become embedded in blood vessels inside the tumor and spare healthy tissue surrounding it.

SIRT relies on angiographic imaging guidance to visualize the tumor, as well as the application catheter within the feeding vessels and surrounding structures during therapy. Use of the Siemens Artis angiography system can help enhance image quality and implement these treatments, the companies say, throughout preprocedure planning, intraprocedure monitoring and control, and postprocedure assessment.

“With the advanced technology of our angiographic systems (Artis systems) and Syngo reading software, Siemens enables health care professionals to perform more complex interventional procedures—even for patients in poor physical condition. That will change the way liver cancer can be treated,” said Wieland Voigt, MD, head of Siemens Clinical Competence Center Oncology.

Currently, almost two thirds of all interventional procedures in oncology are applied to treat liver tumors. For more information, visit Siemens Healthcare.