drugsTreatmentEstablished

Ethiodized oil

aka Ethiodol, Iodised poppy-seed oil

Lipiodol is an iodine-rich oil injected into the liver's artery that lodges in liver tumours; it lets radiologists see them on CT and is the vehicle that carries chemotherapy into the tumour in conventional chemoembolisation for liver cancer.

Ethiodized oil has been approved in the United States since 1954, originally for lymphangiography and hysterosalpingography. In 2014 the FDA added selective hepatic intra-arterial use for imaging tumours in adults with known hepatocellular carcinoma, formalising its decades-old role in conventional transarterial chemoembolisation, where it is emulsified with doxorubicin or cisplatin and injected before the feeding vessels are blocked. The oil is also the carrier for iodine-131 lipiodol and for imaging hepatocellular carcinoma nodules on follow-up CT. Guerbet manufactures it.

See it in action

An iodinated poppy-seed oil that is retained selectively by hepatocellular carcinoma after hepatic arterial injection, both showing the tumour on CT and carrying chemotherapy into it during chemoembolisation.

1. What happens next: the small molecule schematic

How imaging works, step by step · animated schematic, not to scale; chosen from the modality "Oily iodinated contrast agent for hepatic arterial injection"

Imaging →

2. Step by step

auto-advancing · hover to pause

1.Ethiodized oil slips into a pocket on its target.

Modality

Oily iodinated contrast agent for hepatic arterial injection

Mechanism

Brand / code

Lipiodol

Regulatory

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Approvals

Region	Year	Indication
US	1954	Lymphangiography and hysterosalpingography; selective hepatic intra-arterial imaging of hepatocellular carcinoma added in 2014

Trials

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Ethiodized oil

intervention: Ethiodized oil

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