“I’m never satisfied with the status quo, I’m always looking to move the needle, how can we advance,” said Allan Tsung, MD, the James director of surgical oncology and a specialist in liver, bile duct and pancreatic cancer. Advances in surgical techniques have led to better outcomes for patients, and include minimally invasive surgical techniques, as well as a new method to directly infuse chemotherapy into liver-cancer tumors. In this episode, Tsung talks about what inspired him to specialize in this field and his determination to move the needle forward. His father, a physician and radiation oncologist, was diagnosed with metastatic colorectal cancer that spread to his liver, when Tsung was in middle school. “Back then there were not many treatments available, especially surgery for liver cancer, which was very high risk,” he said. “They couldn’t remove his liver tumors … and he passed away.” Tsung has helped to lead the way to increase the options. Minimally invasive surgery utilizes smaller, less-invasive incisions which reduce the risk of complications and allows patients to spend less time in the hospital and begin radiation and chemotherapy treatments sooner. For some patients, the cancerous tumors are too invasive to safely remove surgically. For these patients, “we can now directly infuse chemotherapy into the liver, with minimal side effects,” Tsung said of the technique in which a hepatic artery infusion pump is placed near the liver of a patient. He described this pump as similar in size and shape to a hockey puck. Chemotherapy is infused into the pump, and then directly into the liver on a continuous basis.