Neoplastic disease confined to the liver is an important worldwide problem. In the industrialized nations, metastatic disease of the most common cancers involves the liver in upwards of 50% of cases. Primary hepatic tumors are virtually epidemic in most third world countries and certainly constitute one of the ten most common causes of cancer deaths on a worldwide scale. Amazingly, little specific attention has been devoted to therapeutic approaches of liver and biliary tumors until recently. We attribute this apparent lack of interest to the uniformly poor progno sis of patients so afflicted, and attribute the renewed interest to the exciting new developments in diagnostic and therapeutic technology as well as in tumor biology. The purpose of this book is to collect in one volume an integrated selection of articles that would provide the therapist with a comprehensive, yet practical, overview of liver cancer. We believe the contributors to the book are superbly qualified experts on the various subjects and provide in-depth information on respective fields. The edit ing process for us was not only educational but thrilling as the high quality and complementary nature of the chapters became evident as we received them. Be cause many areas in the field of liver cancer are controversial, the reader will notice that contradictory opinions are presented by some of the authors.
