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5 treatment settings, 5 with more than one named option. Each section lays out the options the standard of care names, what each is for, the trials behind them with their recorded results, the side effects and cautions on record, and questions to ask. Built from the cancer page's standard-of-care rows; nothing here is advice for your case.
Hepatectomy, increasingly laparoscopic or robotic; ablation as an alternative for tumours up to 3 cm.
Thermal ablation kills a tumour with heat or cold delivered through a needle, with no incision required.
Surgeons operate through small incisions using robotic arms with tremor-free precision and 3D vision.
No trial record is attached to this row yet. The trials tab lists what is recruiting and the landmark trials for this cancer.
Add these to your appointment list, or take the full question set for this cancer.
Liver transplantation, with bridging ablation or chemoembolisation on the waiting list and downstaging for patients just outside the criteria.
Replacing the whole diseased liver cures both the cancer and the cirrhosis underneath it, for patients whose tumours are small enough.
A catheter threaded into the artery feeding a liver tumour delivers chemotherapy and then blocks the vessel, starving the tumour from inside.
Thermal ablation kills a tumour with heat or cold delivered through a needle, with no incision required.
No trial record is attached to this row yet. The trials tab lists what is recruiting and the landmark trials for this cancer.
Add these to your appointment list, or take the full question set for this cancer.
Stereotactic body radiotherapy or radioembolisation.
Stereotactic body radiotherapy converges multiple beams with sub-millimetre accuracy to deliver tumour-destroying doses in one to five outpatient sessions, doing the job of surgery for inoperable early lung cancer and for metastases in liver, spine and brain. Tumour size and location limit its use, and late toxicity is a concern near the central airways.
Millions of tiny radioactive glass or resin beads are injected into the liver artery, lodging in the tumour and irradiating it from within.
No trial record is attached to this row yet. The trials tab lists what is recruiting and the landmark trials for this cancer.
Add these to your appointment list, or take the full question set for this cancer.
No proven adjuvant therapy (STORM and IMbrave050 negative in the end); antiviral therapy, alcohol abstinence and continued imaging surveillance.
A PD-L1 blocker used in lung, liver, and bladder cancer. In 2026 it became the first drug approved based on a blood test showing leftover cancer after bladder surgery.
Bevacizumab is a humanised antibody that soaks up VEGF-A, the signal tumours use to grow new blood vessels. Approved in 2004, it partners chemotherapy in colorectal, ovarian, cervical, lung, kidney and liver cancer and glioblastoma, and adds to trifluridine/tipiracil in late-line bowel cancer; hypertension, protein in the urine and bleeding are its characteristic side effects.
People with cirrhosis or chronic hepatitis B get a liver ultrasound and a blood test every six months so cancer is caught while it is still curable.
Interim RFS HR 0.72; benefit not sustained at update.
| Side effect | Any grade | Grade 3+ |
|---|---|---|
| Pneumonitis (immune-mediated) · Monotherapy pooled | 3% | 0.8% |
| Hepatitis (immune-mediated) · Monotherapy pooled | 1.8% | 0.7% |
| Colitis (immune-mediated) · Monotherapy pooled | 1% | 0.5% |
| Hypothyroidism (immune-mediated) · Monotherapy pooled | 4.9% | 0.2% |
Rates from the label or pivotal trial as recorded on the product page; each grade 3+ figure links to its source.
Add these to your appointment list, or take the full question set for this cancer.
Six-monthly ultrasound with alpha-fetoprotein in cirrhosis and chronic hepatitis B.
People with cirrhosis or chronic hepatitis B get a liver ultrasound and a blood test every six months so cancer is caught while it is still curable.
Ultrasound uses sound waves to make live pictures; it is cheap, safe, and used to guide needles into lumps.
MRI uses a strong magnet and radio waves, with no ionising radiation, to picture soft tissue in finer contrast than CT, so it is the standard scan for brain tumours, prostate, rectal cancer staging, liver lesions and breast screening in high-risk women. It is slow, expensive and blurred by movement.
No trial record is attached to this row yet. The trials tab lists what is recruiting and the landmark trials for this cancer.
Add these to your appointment list, or take the full question set for this cancer.