Prolonged survival through combined treatment with radiofrequency ablation/ethanol instillation compared with radiofrequency ablation alone in the VX2 rabbit liver tumour model

Combination of radiofrequency ablation (RFA)/ethanol instillation (EI) leads to higher survival rates compared to single RFA for the treatment of VX2 liver tumours in a rabbit tumour model. To improve the outcome and survival rates of RFA in treatment of liver tumours, a comparative study of RFA with or without EI was performed. We implanted a single tumour in the liver of 46 rabbits. After 20 days, animals were treated with RFA/EI or RFA alone. The animals were observed for a maximum of 110 days, after which an autopsy was conducted. 30 animals of the RFA group and 16 of combination therapy were analysed. After interim analysis with the Kaplan-Meier method, a significantly higher survival rate for the combination therapy was observed (P = 0.004). Following the study design, the experiment was therefore terminated ahead of schedule. Rate of metastasis (M) and local recurrence (LR) did not differ between the combination or RFA alone. RFA/EI is superior to treatment with RFA alone with regard to survival rates.