Internal Radiation Therapy in Treating Patients With Primary Liver Cancer That Cannot Be Removed by Surgery

Inclusion Criteria: * Diagnosis of hepatocellular carcinoma * Not amenable to surgical resection or immediate liver transplantation * Destaging of tumor prior to surgical resection or transplantation allowed * Measurable disease, defined as ≥ 1 lesion that can be accurately measured in ≥ 1 dimension (longest diameter to be recorded) ≥ 10 mm by contrasted CT scan * No equivocal, nonmeasurable, or nonevaluable liver cancer * No more than 75% replacement of normal liver by tumor * Cancer of the Liver Italian Program (CLIP) stage 1-3 disease * No extra-hepatic metastases as determined by CT scan or MRI Exclusion Criteria: * Life expectancy ≥ 3 months * Karnofsky performance status 50-100% * Creatinine ≤ 1.5 mg/dL * Bilirubin ≤ 2.0 mg/dL * Albumin ≥ 3 g/dL * Granulocyte count ≥ 1,500/mm³ * Platelet count ≥ 65,000/mm³ * INR ≤ 1.4 * Hemoglobin \> 9 g/dL * Not pregnant or nursing * Negative pregnancy test * Fertile patients must use effective contraception during and for 3 months after completion of study treatment * No nonmalignant disease that would render the patient ineligible for treatment according to this protocol * No hepatic arterial anatomy that would prevent the administration of study drug into the liver * Less than 20% arteriovenous lung shunting on a technetium 99m-labeled macroaggregated albumin nuclear scan * No other malignancy within the past 5 years except for cured basal cell carcinoma of the skin or cured carcinoma in situ of the uterine cervix PRIOR CONCURRENT THERAPY: * See Disease Characteristics * More than 90 days since prior surgery, chemotherapy, or locally ablative technique for the liver cancer * More than 4 weeks since prior and no other concurrent investigational drug or agent/procedure (i.e., participation in another trial) * No prior radiotherapy to the upper abdomen that included the liver in the treatment field * No capecitabine within 8 weeks before or after study treatment * No other anticancer treatment (except surgical resection) for liver cancer during and for 3 months after completion of study treatment