Surgical resection of colorectal liver metastases

Liver metastases are a major cause of death in patients with colorectal carcinoma. The only curative option available at present is surgery. This review article discusses the current state of evidence for the effectiveness of liver resection for patients with liver metastases from colorectal cancer.

Medline, Embase, Current Contents and Science Citation Index databases were used to search English language articles published on the subject of liver resection for colorectal metastases in the last 20 years.

Liver resection has a five year survival of 16-49% and 10 year survival of 17-33% with an operative mortality rate of 0-9%. Two factors appear to be clearly associated with poorer outcome - involved resection margins and the presence of extrahepatic disease (including hilar and coeliac axis lymph nodes) at the time of liver resection. None of the other factors related to the patients, their primary tumour or the metastases themselves have been conclusively shown to adversely effect long-term survival.

Liver resection is a feasible, safe and effective procedure which carries an acceptable morbidity and mortality and does have a major impact on the survival of these patients. The decision on resectability of colorectal metastases should be decided by the ability to leave at least 2-3 segments of liver free from metastases with uninvolved resection margins, together with the general fitness of the patient to undergo a major surgical procedure.