Fed: Livers face similar scan to breasts to find cancers

AAP General News (Australia)
02-16-2000
Fed: Livers face similar scan to breasts to find cancers

By Ainsley Pavey

BRISBANE, Feb 16 AAP - Doctors may start scanning livers like breasts in an effort
to detect the early stages of cancer.

Scientists at Townsville's James Cook University (JCU) and Sydney's Royal Prince Alfred
Hospital (RPAH) are preparing to hold clinical trials this year after they found a way
of detecting liver cancer in rats.

A recently-completed three-year study used a method similar to Magnetic Resonance Imaging
(MRI) scans to take a snapshot of the chemical makeup of the liver of rats at various
stages of cancer growth.

Liver cancer biopsy samples are being gathered at the RPAH National Liver Transplant
Centre to start the clinical trials with the scanning method this year.

RPAH pathology director Proffessor Peter Russell said today his research team, including
JCU PhD student Lesley Foley, JCU liver cancer expert Rheal Towner and RPAH pathologist
Dorothy Painter, had devised a method which had the potential to revolutionise liver cancer
detection.

"The whole thing is to prevent people from having expensive and detailed biopsies,"

Professor Russell said.

"They can be a bit hit and miss because the radiologist taking the test may have missed
the cancerous piece of liver.

"MRI is a freely available technique that's not particularly expensive.

"We will be able to diagnose the cancer easier, and more often when it is treatable
and less expensive to treat."

Liver cancer - which accounts for 1.1 per cent of the world's death rate - was rapidly
increasing because of hepatitis B epidemics in Asia and Africa and the increased use of
intravenous drugs.

While the research was likely to lead to cheaper diagnosis, Professor Russell said
patients would not get a medicare rebate for the scans because the technology was yet
unproven in liver cancer detection.

He said the use of the scans was still a long way off, but would eventually save lives.

"We wouldn't do it if we didn't think it would work," he said.

"The aim of the exercise is to make apparent medical expertise available more cheaply."

AAP ap/sc/ej

KEYWORD: LIVER

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