Introduction: Hepatic resection is the procedure of choice for curative treatment of colorectal liver metastases (CLM).l Hepatectomy allows five-year survival rates up to 58% in selected cases2 and 10 year survival rates of 16%3 to 23%.4 The use of surgical innovations, such as staged resection, portal vein embolization, and repeated resection has allowed higher resection rates in patients with bilobar disease. The use of neoadjuvant chemotherapy allows up to 38% of patients previously considered irresectable to be significantly downstaged and eligible for hepatic resection.2
Design: A prospective study.
Patients: From January 2009 to December 2011, 30 consecutive patients (16 male and 14 female) with multiple colorectalliver metastases (synchronus and metachronus) underwent surgical intervention in Ain Shams University Hospitals. The mean age was 49.9 years (27 to
75y, SD ±10.31). Simultaneous resection was done when primary lesion was not locally advanced, no intestinal obstruction and the metastases were easily resectable with adequate future liver volume. Neoadjuvant chemotherapy was started in all metachronus and selected patients with synchronus liver metastases. The aim of neoadjuvant was to downstage irresectable tumors and test their biological behavior. Follow up of patients with clinical examination, tumor marker and radiological assessment for a median follow up period of 12 months was done.
Results: This study was conducted on 30 patients. Twenty eight patients had adenocarcinoma (93.3%), 1 mucinous adenocarcinoma (3.3%) and 1 liomyosarcoma ofthe colon (3.3%). LNs were positive in 76.7% and negative in 23.3% of cases.Ninety one colorectal metastatic tumors were identified (synchronous in 9 patients and metachronus in 21 patients) situated in the right lobe, left lobe and bilobar in 53%, 12%, and 35% respectively. CEA was elevated in14 cases and CA19.9 was elevated in 7 cases. Fifty percent underwent major hepatectomy and 50% underwent minor hepatectomy. The mean postoperative hospital stay was 9.5 ± 3.13 days. Twenty nine cases required postoperative ICU admission and the mean postoperative ICU stay was 1.8 ± 1.04days. Six patients (20%) had perioperative complications as follows: biliary leak in three cases (10%), intra-abdominal collection in one case (3%), chest infection in one case (3%) and pulmonary embolism in one case (3%). All these complications were treated conservatively. There were no cases of postoperative liver failure. Nine patients (30%) had recurrent malignant disease (mean follow up period was 12 ± 8). Recurrence was local (17%), hepatic (6%) or combined local and distant extra-hepatic (6%). Cases with hepatic recurrence were managed by hepatic resection in one case and the other by percutaneous RFA. Two mortalities were reported. The first patient died from extensive myocardial infarction 3 months postoperatively. The second patient died 15 months postoperatively due to respiratory failure from pulmonary metastases.
Conclusion: Surgical resection is the only potentially curative treatment of colorectal metastases.Resectability is no longer restricted and durable survival is possible even in patients with multiple and large metastases. The philosophy is to be more aggressive, tailoring the management plan by multidisciplinary team, and to increase the indications for surgical resection by using one or combination of the following techniques (Portal vein embolization, local ablative techniques, new chemotherapy or staged hepatectomy).