Resection for Colorectal Liver Metastases

Colorectal cancer is the third most frequent cancer in the Western world. About half of the patients develop synchronous or metachronous metastases. The liver is the most common site of such metastases and thus hepatic metastatic disease is a significant socio-medical problem. If it is not treated, the median patient survival is only some months. Surgical resection is the treatment of choice for patients with isolated colorectal liver metastases when feasible. For patients with four or fewer isolated hepatic lesions, five year relapse-free survival rates range from 24 to 58 percent and ten year survival rates vary between 17 and 33 percent. There is a convincing socio-epidemiological evidence of the dramatic unfavourable influence on population wealth of untimely diagnosis and inadequate treatment of the patients with advanced and metastatic colorectal cancer worldwide (Hata et al., 2010; Kostov & Kobakov, 2006a; Stillwell et al., 2011; Tsoulfas et al., 2011).