Ischaemia reperfusion may be a new approach in cancer interventional therapy

Cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide. Interventional cancer therapy made huge progress in the past few decades; however, traditional interventional therapy, for example, transarterial embolisation and transarterial chemoembolisation, remains to be developed for its potential limitations. Numerous studies in the past half century demonstrated that tissue injury accelerated after ischaemia reperfusion. Reactive oxygen species (ROS) production, cell death and inflammatory factors involved in the development of ischaemia reperfusion injury. As outlined above, we hypothesise that reperfusing the tumour lesion with high oxygen, high calcium and high pH fluid together with ROS-generating agents and/or inhibitor of antioxidant system, with or without traditional chemotherapeutic agents after a short-time arterial embolisation, can effectively induce cancer cell death, and it might be a new attempt in cancer interventional therapy.