🔄 Conversion Therapy

In oncology, conversion therapy refers to a treatment strategy that aims to shrink or control an initially unresectable tumor, allowing it to become resectable (operable) at a later stage.

🧠 Key Concept: From “incurable” to “potentially curable”

📚 Definition: A therapeutic approach used to downstage a tumor—through systemic therapy (e.g., chemotherapy, targeted therapy, immunotherapy)—so that surgical resection or local ablative therapy becomes feasible in patients who were not surgical candidates at diagnosis.

🎯 Goals: Achieve tumor reduction or disease control

Make surgery or curative treatment technically possible and oncologically justified

Improve overall prognosis or achieve long-term remission

🧪 Typical Scenarios: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC): Downstaging with lenvatinib or donafenib to make liver resection or ablation possible

Colorectal cancer with liver metastases: Chemotherapy used to reduce metastases to allow curative hepatectomy

Esophageal, gastric, or pancreatic cancers: Neoadjuvant therapy for borderline resectable tumors

⚠️ Not to Be Confused With: Psychiatric or religious “conversion therapy” aimed at changing sexual orientation — a completely unrelated and ethically condemned practice.