Tumor-feeding hepatic artery

The tumor-feeding hepatic artery refers to the specific arterial branches of the hepatic artery that provide the primary blood supply to liver tumors, especially in hepatocellular carcinoma and metastatic disease. Unlike normal liver parenchyma—which receives most of its blood from the portal vein—liver tumors derive up to 95% of their blood from the hepatic artery. This hemodynamic property enables interventional treatments such as transarterial chemoembolization and radioembolization, where anticancer agents are selectively administered into the tumor-feeding artery, maximizing the local effect while sparing most healthy tissue. However, "tumor-feeding hepatic artery" is not a molecular target, receptor, or protein, and should not be considered a canonical therapeutic target in the conventional sense. Rather, it is a functional and anatomical conduit exploited for locoregional therapy in liver cancer. The appropriate structured records (for canonical molecular/drug target databases) would generally not include this as a target entry; instead, it is an anatomical/clinical feature used for targeted drug delivery.

Other names

Feeding artery of liver tumorHepatic arterial supply to tumorHepatic tumor artery

Drugs are delivered via catheter into the tumor-feeding hepatic artery to achieve high local concentrations by: - Direct delivery of chemotherapy (chemoembolization/TACE) - Blockage of blood supply (embolization) - Radioactive microspheres (radioembolization)