Introduction: Surgical resection is the only potentially curative treatment for metastatic cancer to the liver. Therapeutic guidelines for treatment of colorectal liver metastases are well defined, but it remains difficult to establish therapeutic guidelines for heterogeneous group of noncolorectal liver metastases.
Methods: 20 patients with liver metastases of different origin were preoperatively indicated for multimodal therapy and were operated between 1998-2002 at our department. All patients could be divided in 4 homogenous groups according to origin of primary tumour. Group of metastatic Grawitz tumour, breast carcinoma, digestive tumours and a group of different tumours. Preoperative assessing of metastatic extent allowed application of multimodal strategy to each patient.
Results: 26 multimodal procedures (6 hemihepatectomies, 6 nonanatomical resections, 4 segmentectomies and bisegmentectomies, 5 implantation of port catheter, 5 cytodestructive procedures) were performed at 20 patients. There were no perioperative death. Postoperative complication was seen in 20% of patients. Actuarial survival rates were 65%, 35% and 15% at 1, 2 and 3 years with median survival 15.6 month.
Conclusion: Low morbidity and satisfactory survival rates justify a multimodal approach to the surgical management of noncolorectal liver metastases.