Outcomes following surgery for colorectal cancer with synchronous peritoneal metastases

The optimal treatment of peritoneal carcinomatosis of colorectal origin appears to be a combination of systemic chemotherapy and complete surgical cytoreduction with synchronous intraperitoneal chemotherapy. The aim of this study was to assess the feasibility of, and outcomes following, surgical treatment and systemic chemotherapy alone.

Prospectively collated data from the Erlangen Registry for Colorectal Cancer were analysed for patients presenting with peritoneal carcinomatosis of colorectal origin between 1990 and 2006. Operative and adjuvant treatment, along with details of postoperative morbidity, were evaluated and correlated with survival outcomes after 5 years.

Some 125 patients underwent surgical resection for colorectal cancer and synchronous peritoneal carcinomatosis. Two-thirds also had non-peritoneal distant metastases. R0/R1 resection was possible in 24 (59 per cent) of 41 patients with peritoneal metastases alone, and in a further seven patients with both peritoneal and distant metastases (overall R0/R1 resection rate 24·8 per cent). In-hospital morbidity and mortality rates were 32·0 and 12·0 per cent respectively. Twenty-three of the 31 patients who underwent R0/R1 resection developed recurrent disease. Median survival for the entire group was 12 months. Following R0/R1 resection median survival was 25 months and the 5-year survival rate 22 per cent. Six (4·8 per cent) of the 125 patients survived for more than 5 years.

Complete resection of all metastatic disease was associated with improved survival and was possible in almost 60 per cent of patients with peritoneal metastases alone.