[Surgery of metastases--can surgery of metastases be radical?]

Resection of metastases gains more and more importance in day to day surgical work task. Mainly only liver- and pulmonary metastases can be resected with a curative aim, depending on the primary tumor and the metastasing cascade. According to tumor surgery a R0-resection is warranted. Whether a multimodal approach may improve long-term results by eliminating occult micrometastases should be answered by ongoing studies. Even in palliative situations complete resections of metastasis are preferred and in selected situations a multimodal approach may be chosen.