Abstract: Objective To investigate the clinical application and short-term effects of stereotactic whole-body γ-knife radiotherapy combined with Chinese herbal drugs to treat patients with large primary liver cancer. Methods A total of 100 patients with large pri-mary liver cancer hospitalized from July 2009 to February 2011 were randomly divided into a treatment group and control group.The treatment group was treated with whole-body γ-knife radiotherapy combined with Chinese herbal drugs.Stereotactic super-γ-knife ra-diotherapy was carried out 4~12 times，5 times per week（tumor size，55.9~2579.0 cm3；isodose curve，50％~60%；total radiation dose， 33~40 Gy；fractional dose，3.3~5.0 Gy）.Treatment with Chinese herbal drugs（prescription No. 1）was carried out during radiotherapy or for 2~3 months after the radiotherapy.Prescription No.2 was used for 2~3 months after radiotherapy.The control group was treated with only stereotactic super-γ-knife radiotherapy.Therapeutic effects and side effects of the two treatments were analyzed. Results The overall response rates at 3 months after treatment were 95.83% in the treatment group and 94.23% in the control group.The treatment group showed 6-month and 1-year survival rates of 75.00% and 71.15%，compared to 60.42% and 57.69% for the control group.The two groups did not differ significantly in curative effects（P>0.05），whereas they did differ significantly in adverse reactions（P<0.05）. Conclusion Stereotactic super-γ-knife radiotherapy is effective for treating large primary liver cancer， and the combination of whole-body γ-knife with Chinese herbal drugs can improve quality of life significantly and reduce the adverse reactions due to radiotherapy.

Key words:  Large primary liver cancer, Whole-body γ-knife, Stereotactic radiotherapy, Chinese herbal drugs