[Surgical therapy of primary and secondary liver tumors]

Advances in operative, diagnostic and post-operative care technique have rendered liver resections safe. Consecutively, indications for operative interventions in primary and secondary liver tumors have changed. A current state of the art is presented. Focal nodular hyperplasia, if found incidentally during laparotomy, should be removed en-passant. Large or central lesions should be biopsied and can be observed if they remain asymptomatic and stable in size. Symptomatic or growing FNH should be removed. If the diagnosis is evasive resection should be favored. Most patients with hepatocellular adenoma are symptomatic and the lesion should therefore be removed. Hemangiomas are rarely causing symptoms. In case they truly are, or if they cause complications they should be excised. Anatomical resections for hepatocellular carcinoma are only feasible in non-cirrhotic livers or in patients with cirrhosis and compensated liver function. Other patients are candidates for liver transplantation if the cancer is stage I or II. Stage III and IVa lesions are subject of current studies. Surgical resection remains the only potentially curative treatment for intrahepatic cholangiocellular carcinoma. Because of their dismal prognosis these patients are not candidates for transplantation. Resection continues to be the most effective therapy for colorectal metastases to the liver. Patients with non-colorectal, non-neuroendocrine metastases are usually only candidates for surgical palliation. Cure can be achieved in patients with renal cell carcinoma or Wilms' tumor. Additionally, neuroendocrine metastases to the liver can be resected in curative intent if extrahepatic disease was excluded. In the few symptomatic patients in whom extrahepatic disease was excluded, symptomatic treatment has failed, and the lesions are not resectable, liver transplantation can provide a reasonable therapeutic choice.