Measurement of response to treatment in colorectal liver metastases

Assessment of tumour response to chemotherapy is important when assessing efficacy of treatment and comparing differing therapeutic regimens. Percentage hepatic replacement (PHR) is commonly used to assess response to treatment of colorectal hepatic metastases. PHR is dependent not only on tumour volume, but also on hepatic parenchymal volume. The effect of tumour growth on hepatic parenchymal volume is unclear but is of importance owing to its effect on PHR. We assessed tumour and hepatic parenchymal weights in an animal tumour model using dissection, and tumour and hepatic parenchymal volumes in patients with colorectal hepatic metastases using CT scanning, in order to establish how hepatic parenchyma varied with change in metastasis size. There was no significant correlation between tumour and liver parenchyma in either the animal model (r = -0.03, P > 0.05) or the patient study (r = 0.3, P < 0.05). This suggests that hepatic parenchymal volume was preserved in the presence of increasing tumour volume. In a further study of computerised tomographic (CT) scans before and after treatment in patients whose tumours either responded to chemotherapy or continued to grow, change in PHR (median proportion of PHR change = 0.40) significantly (P = 0.04) underestimated the change in tumour volume (median proportion of tumour volume change = 0.56), particularly at higher (> 400 ml) volumes. There was good correlation between change in tumour volume and WHO criteria in assigning patients to tumour growth, stable disease or tumour response categories. This study suggests that, in clinical trials comparing colorectal liver metastasis treatments, metastasis volume and not PHR should be used to assess extent of disease and the effect of treatment.