Research article

Percutaneous ultrasound-guided ablation of BW7756-hepatoma using ethanol or acetic acid in a rat model

Enrico M Zardi¹ , Domenico Borzomati² , Fabio Cacciapaglia¹ , Antonio Picardi¹ , Sergio Valeri² , Antonella Bianchi³ , Tommaso Galeotti⁴ , Giusy Coppolino¹ , Roberto Coppola² and Antonella Afeltra¹

¹  Department of Clinical Medicine "Campus Bio-Medico" University, Rome, Italy

²  Department of Digestive Disease "Campus Bio-Medico" University, Rome, Italy

³  Department of Pathology "Campus Bio-Medico" University, Rome, Italy

⁴  Institute of General Pathology, Catholic University Medical School, Rome, Italy

author email corresponding author email

BMC Gastroenterology 2007, 7:45doi:10.1186/1471-230X-7-45

Published:	13 December 2007

Abstract

Background

To compare tumor necrosis in hepatoma induced in rats by a single percutaneous injection of ethanol (PEI) or acetic acid (PAI).

Methods

BW7756 hepatomas of 1 mm³ were implanted in the liver of 40 male healthy rats. After 14 days, the 36 surviving rats were treated, in a single session, by ultrasound-guided injection of 300 μl of 95% ethanol (n = 17) or 100 μl of 50% acetic acid (n = 19). They were sacrificed 14 days after treatment and explanted tumoral livers were examined. The same PAI procedure was repeated on 13 additional rats to exclude a suspected occurrence of technical failures during the experiment, due to a surprisingly high rate of deaths within 30 minutes after PAI.

Results

Four rats died within four days after tumor implantation; after PEI, 1/17 (6%) died, whereas after PAI 9/19 (47%) died. The remaining 26 rats, after 14 days post-percutaneous ablation, were sacrificed. Gross and microscopic examinations showed that the hepatoma's nodules treated with PEI had 45.3 ± 19.4% tumor necrosis compared to 49 ± 23.3% (P = NS) for those treated with PAI. Complete tumor necrosis was not found in any animal. Peritoneal invasion was present in 4/16 (25%) and 2/10 (20%) rats treated with PEI or PAI, respectively (P = NS). Autopsy was performed in the 5 additional rats that died within 30 minutes after PAI.

Conclusion

Our results show that there is no significant difference in the percentage of tumor necrosis between two local ablation methods in spite of the different dosages used. However, mortality in the PAI-treated group was greater than in PEI-treated group, presumably due to greater acetic acid systemic diffusion and its metabolic side effects. In human subjects, HCC occurs in the setting of cirrhosis, where the non-tumoral tissue is firmer than the tumor structure, with consequent reduction of drug diffusion. This could be the reason why some human studies have concluded similar or even better safety and efficacy with PAI compared to PEI.