ABSTRACT
Treatment of primary colorectal cancer with surgical resection, combined with chemotherapy or radiation therapy in certain cases, is frequently curative. However, 25% of patients present with metastases to the liver at the time of diagnosis.1 Also, following potentially curative resection of the primary, 50% of patients will have tumor recurrence in the liver within five years.2 In appropriate patients, liver resection for colorectal metastases must be considered the standard of care, since surgical resection of metastatic disease isolated to the liver can result in cure in approximately one-third of patients.3
However, the majority of patients with metastatic disease due to primary colorectal cancers are not candidates for surgical resection because of either anatomic considerations or extrahepatic disease. In fact, only 5-10% of these patients will have surgically resectable disease. Therefore, other ablative therapies are being investigated to eradicate colorectal metastases in the liver in patients for whom resection is not feasible, or who have recurred following resection. These therapies are also undergoing evaluation to determine if an alternative to resection that is less invasive can be utilized to provide cure for metastatic liver deposits.
