The Research Centre for Paediatrics and Paediatric Surgery of Kazakhstan adopted a new method to treat paediatric liver cancer. This is chemoembolization that has been successfully used in European countries since 2005. In Kazakhstan, liver cancer treatment was previously used only in adult patients, the press office of the Ministry of Health of Kazakhstan reported.
The first chemoembolization in the child with liver cancer was performed at the Research Centre. The experienced specialists: oncoradiologist Niyaz Beysenovich Malayev and X-ray surgeons Aziz Onlasynov and Begaydar Yelibayev performed the procedure on the girl who is one and a half years old.
Chemoembolization allows injecting chemotherapy drugs on special microspheres directly into the artery that supplies blood to the liver tumour. This is a minimally invasive treatment based on local chemotherapeutic and ischemic effects, leading to extensive tumour cell destruction. It causes no damage to other organs and reduces the risk of complications and mortality. Rehabilitation takes 2-3 days after the procedure.
About 600 cases of malignant tumours in children are detected annually in Kazakhstan. Hepatoblastoma, or liver cancer, accounts for about 0.5-2% of all tumours and 2/3 of primary paediatric liver tumours. The Research Centre for Paediatrics and Paediatric Surgery has been successfully treating children with hepatoblastoma since 2013, and 40 out of 69 children are in remission now.
