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