MSK Kids’ doctors customize your child’s treatment to the type and stage of their liver cancer and tumor and the risk of it coming back later.
Most liver cancer patients have surgery, and some also have chemotherapy before and/or after surgery.
Your team will explain every aspect of your child’s care, make sure you understand what is involved, and answer any questions you may have.
Surgery for pediatric liver cancer
MSK Kids pediatric liver cancer surgeons are known around the world for doing the most complex liver operations. Your child may have surgery alone, or with chemotherapy. Learn more about liver tumor surgery at MSK Kids.
Are pediatric liver tumors treated with chemotherapy?
Chemotherapy is usually required before hepatoblastoma surgery to shrink the tumor and afterward to reduce the chance of the cancer coming back. Other liver tumors, including hepatocellular carcinoma and undifferentiated embryonal sarcoma of the liver, are usually treated with chemotherapy. We generally do not use chemotherapy to treat fibrolamellar hepatocellular carcinoma, except in unique circumstances.
Are there any targeted therapies for pediatric liver cancer?
Some children with liver cancers may receive anti-cancer drugs through clinical trials. The main drugs currently being tested work by either:
- Blocking the development of the blood vessels that tumors need to grow and spread
- By helping the immune system to recognize and attack the liver tumors.
Locoregional therapies for pediatric liver tumors
Treatments applied directly to cancer are called locoregional therapies. For liver cancer, they include:
- Radiofrequency ablation, where tumor tissue is destroyed with very high heat
- Chemoembolization, where anticancer drugs are sent into arteries that sustain a tumor and are sealed in place. At MSK Kids, we sometimes use these treatments to treat inoperable liver tumors, those that have come back or resist other therapies, and tumors that spread to the liver from cancers elsewhere in the body.
Is radiation therapy used to treat pediatric liver tumors?
Radiation therapy is rarely used to treat primary liver tumors in children but may be used to treat tumors that have spread to the liver from elsewhere.