[Surgical and interventional treatment of liver metastases]

The liver is the most common target organ for metastatic disease. The majority of patients undergoing surgical treatment for liver metastases have colorectal primaries. Endocrine liver metastases, or metastases from other tumors such as mammary carcinoma, sarcomas, renal tumors or gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST) are appreciably less common for surgical treatment. The gold standard of treatment is resection of the metastatic lesions. In the meantime, advances in surgical techniques and improved perioperative patient management make it possible to perform extensive resections with acceptable morbidity and mortality rates. In the event of metastases that are not primarily resectable, various downstaging procedures are available, with the aid of which secondary resectability can be achieved. Among the interventional treatment options that should be applied only in palliative intent, radiofrequency ablation is in widespread use.