Re: Liver Cancer - SIR Spheres

Hi Peter,

We are in Melbourne, Australia. My 34 y.o. brother was (eventually) put forward as a candidate for S.I.R.T., at a projected cost of about A$6,000, in September last year. He underwent a full day of testing to determine whether he was suitable. From what I read, they don't bother to do the treatment if the patient only has six weeks or less to live. In fact, they found that my brother's hepatic artery was already blocked by his cancer, so they would have been unable to administer the treatment. I was relieved as one paper I read described the implanting of the shunt that delivers the spheres as "major surgery". My brother had already endured far too much by that stage. They had known about his cancer, stage IV bowel cancer, metastatic to the liver (inoperable), for six months before S.I.R.T. was mentioned as a possibility. This treatment should have been offered much earlier, I don't understand why it wasn't. My brother died just a few weeks later.