The DRAGON Trials: Next Generation Liver Cancer Care with Erik Schadde, MD

The DRAGON 1 and 2 trials are large, multicenter, international trials that are evaluating the use of combined portal and hepatic vein, or double vein, embolization, to treat advanced liver cancer and metastases. Double vein embolization has the potential to become a new standard of care that could provide patients with life-extending and even life-saving treatment.

Erik Schadde, MD, FACS, FEBS (HPB), a transplant surgeon at RUSH University Medical Center, spearheaded the creation of the trial and has been at the center of some crucial discoveries in the use of double vein embolization.

“Sometimes liver tumors are so big or there are so many that you have very little liver left in the body if you want to remove them. In the past, those tumors haven’t been resectable. But we’ve actually found that you can grow the liver, so even very small liver remnants can now serve as a future liver remnant. Double embolization is an exciting new method that’s allowing us to do that.”

CME Link: https://cmetracker.net/RUSH/Publisher?page=pubOpenSub#/event/486727