Another patient was excluded because of severely impaired liver function (Child Pugh C11).
A common sign of impaired liver function is jaundice, a yellowness of the eyes and skin arising from excessive bilirubin in the blood.
"We don't know yet whether this treatment will be as safe and effective in patients with more profoundly impaired liver function," said Dr. Louis M. Weiner, a specialist in gastrointestinal tumors at the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia.
Five of these 16 patients (31.3%) received therapy for more than 7.5 months, which indicates that this therapy is well tolerated even in patients with severely impaired liver function.
As per the University of São Paulo Department of Transplantation and Liver Surgery guidelines, liver biopsies are avoided in patients eligible for transplant or with severely impaired liver function.
As shown in Table 2, the majority of patients had severely impaired liver function as demonstrated by the fact that 22 (53.7%) patients had Child Pugh B disease and 35 (85.4%) BLCL stage C disease.
The majority of patients enrolled in this study had either failed standard treatment options or had severely impaired liver function that limited their ability to tolerate any form of systemic or intrahepatic therapy.
Several studies have demonstrated that balanced fluids are commonly used for volume expansion of critically ill patients who may also have impaired liver function (1,2).
They have a risk of accumulation in the elderly and in individuals with severely impaired liver function, but they have a reduced severity of rebound effects and withdrawal.
Patients with sepsis, endocarditis, renal failure or impaired liver function were excluded.
Blood tests revealed impaired liver function (GOT: 46 IU, GPT: 37 IU, γ-GTP: 423).
