Percutaneous Hepatic Perfusion in Patients with Hepatic-dominant Ocular Melanoma

Ocular melanoma, although rare is the most common intraocular malignancy. Ocular melanoma frequently metastasizes to the liver, but there is currently no established standard of care for these patients. 

Dr. Jonathan Zager, surgical oncologist in the Cutaneous Oncology Program, is the lead international principal investigator of a multicenter clinical trial evaluating a new type of therapy, called percutaneous hepatic perfusion (PHP).  PHP is a technique that isolates the liver with a series of catheters and balloons to profuse it with high dose chemotherapy, filtering chemo outside the body and returning chemo-filtrated blood back to the patient through veno veno bypass. Patients receive PHP six times, six to eight weeks apart.

“The objective response rate, meaning evidence tumors are responding to therapy, for PHP patients are almost triple compared to the best alternative care options. And just over 7% of the patients in the PHP arm of the trial had a complete response to therapy versus none in the best alternative care group,” said Dr. Zager.

Dr. Zager presented the preliminary data of the Phase 3 trial at the 2021 annual American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting. The analysis indicated that PHP demonstrated a statistically superior overall response rate and significantly prolonged progression-free survival in comparison with best alternative care in the treatment of hepatic metastases from ocular melanoma.  

View the abstract for more information about this study.