[Key events from the 3rd Francophone Congress on Digestive and Hepatobiliary Surgery]

Colorectal carcinoma is the second leading cause of cancer in Europe and the third cause of cancer death in the United States. Every year in France, 36000 new cases are diagnosed, 50% of them with visceral metastases. Among these metastasis patients, 70% exhibit liver metastasis exclusively at time of diagnosis. In most patients, liver metastases are non resecables with chemotherapy offering poor long term survival. Surgery is the only curative treatment. Among patients with liver metastases, 10 to 20% are resecable with 40% of them surviving at 5 years. The aim of chemotherapy intensification schedules is to allow resection in 15 to 30% of initially non resecable metastatic patients and consequently offering some long term survivals. Regarding colon cancer liver metastases therapeutic strategy, confrontation between oncologists and surgeons is essential in order to give the opportunity to a significant number of metastatic patients to acces to cure.