A surgeon at Carolinas Medical Center performed the first microwave surgery in the Carolinas this week to treat advanced liver cancer in a 48-year-old Charlotte man.

Dr. David Iannitti, who was recruited to Charlotte last year from Brown University in Rhode Island, is among a handful of U.S. surgeons who have used "microwave ablation" to destroy liver tumors that cannot be removed by conventional surgery.

The microwave technique is an alternative to radiofrequency ablation, which has been available since 1997. Radiofrequency ablation destroys tumors by heating them with electric current. Microwave ablation uses a much higher frequency, creating an energy field that heats and kills the tissue.

"Radiofrequency is low and slow," Iannitti said. "Microwave is hot and fast."

The patient, Kevin Heslin, a vice president at Goodrich Corp., was diagnosed in July with colon cancer that had spread to his liver. He had surgery to remove the tumor in his colon, followed by 10 rounds of chemotherapy. He agreed to be the first patient at Carolinas Medical Center to undergo the microwave technique in an attempt to get rid of remaining liver tumors.

On Tuesday, Iannitti destroyed six tumors on Heslin's liver in an operation that lasted about three hours. He applied the energy to Heslin's liver by sticking long, thin needle-like antennae around the margins of the tumors.

Without the microwave surgery, Iannitti said Heslin's chance of surviving five years was zero. With the surgery, he has a 25 percent chance of surviving for five years, which is generally thought of as a cure. "He's responded very well," Iannitti said.

On Wednesday, Heslin moved from intensive care to a regular hospital room, decorated with red Valentine's Day balloons from his wife that said "Be My 'Liver' Boy." He was taking medication for pain and expected to be in the hospital for four to six days.

At a news conference Thursday, Barb Heslin said her husband has encouraged friends and relatives to get screening colonoscopies to detect colon cancer early. When asked her reaction to the idea that doctors would microwave her husband's liver, she joked: "I've wanted to nuke him a few times."

She said he was not afraid of being the first patient at the medical center to have the procedure. "Kevin likes to be the first to do anything," she said. "He's determined to beat this. To be able to stay in the town you live in [and have this operation] is a huge plus."

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