(IE or Firefox) Our partners Zeitgeist Advisory   Oncology, surgery   Liver tumours treated effectively by MR-guided laser ablation 20 December 2005 Destruction of cancerous liver tissue by laser light guided by magnetic resonance (MR) imaging was found to be as effective as traditional surgery for some patients, in a large-scale, 12-year study in Germany. In the largest study of its type with the longest follow-up, 839 patients at the University of Frankfurt in Germany received MR-guided laser-induced thermotherapy (LITT) for the treatment of liver tumours resulting from colorectal cancer. Between 1993 and 2005, the researchers treated 2,506 liver tumours and tracked survival rates to evaluate the long-term results of the procedure. The average survival rate from the date of diagnosis was 3.8 years, which compares favourably to survival

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