Peri-operative chemotherapy for resectable colorectal cancer liver metastases

Approximately one-third of patients survive for 5 years following curative resection of hepatic metastases from colorectal cancer, and the proportion of hepatectomy-related death is as low as 1-2 %. These observations strongly support the view that hepatectomy seems to be the most effective therapy for treating hepatic metastases from colorectal cancer, due to the potential for long-term survival that is not possible with other treatment modalities. However, a hepatectomy alone does not always provide a complete cure. Adjuvant chemo- therapy may reduce the risk of recurrence and improve long-term survival, but administering systemic agents to the patients with resectable hepatic metastases in the clinical practice is not universal. Until recently, there has been little support for requiring peri-operative chemotherapy in patients with resectable hepatic metastases from colorectal cancer. We, there- fore, conducted a phase II/II randomized controlled trial (JCOG0603) to evaluate modified FOLFOX(mFOLFOX) as adjuvant chemotherapy for patients with curatively resected liver metastases from colorectal cancer. We eagerly await the results of this trial.