Repeated ultrasound-guided percutaneous thermal ablation combined with systemic therapy achieves a stable condition in an end-stage patient with more than 10 liver metastases from breast cancer: The importance of sonazoid assisted contrast-enhanced ultrasound and fusion imaging
Affiliations: [a] Center of Minimally Invasive Treatment for Tumor, Department of Medical Ultrasound, Shanghai Tenth People’s Hospital; Ultrasound Research and Education Institute, Clinical Research Center for Interventional Medicine, School of Medicine, Tongji University, Shanghai, China
| [b] Shanghai Engineering Research Center of Ultrasound Diagnosis and Treatment, Shanghai, China
| [c] National Clinical Research Center for Interventional Medicine, Shanghai, China
| [d] Department of Ultrasound, Zhongshan Hospital, Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine and Engineering, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
Correspondence:
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Corresponding authors: Song-Yuan Yu, MD, Department of Medical Ultrasound, Shanghai Tenth People’s Hospital, School of Medicine, Tongji University, 301 Yanchangzhong Rd, Shanghai 200072, China. E-mail: [email protected] and Hui-Xiong Xu, MD, Ph.D, Department of Ultrasound, Zhongshan Hospital, Fudan University, 180 Fenglin Rd, Shanghai 200032, China. E-mail: [email protected].
Note: [1] These authors contributed equally to this article.
Abstract: The liver is one of the most frequent metastatic sites of breast cancer with a relatively poor prognosis. Systemic chemotherapy is an effective treatment but the efficacy is different between the subtypes of breast cancer. Percutaneous thermal ablation is considered to be a minimally invasive and effective local treatment for breast cancer liver metastases (BCLM). This case report described a patient with BCLM who adopted a strategy of systemic chemotherapy and repeated ultrasound (US) -guided percutaneous thermal ablation procedures. The survival time already reached 8 years till now with the metastases well-controlled and acceptable life quality was achieved.
