Introduction: Liver metastases are diagnosed in 60% of patients with colorectal cancer, both at the time of diagnosis or later in the course of their management. Surgical treatment is the sole potentially curable method with 5-year overall survival of approximately 50%. However, only less than 20% of patients underwent liver resection. A joint effort of medical oncologists and surgeons is to increase the numbers of resected patients. The "liver first approach" (LFA) is one of approaches aimed at increasing resecability. The authors present their preliminary results using this method.
Methods: 102 patients were included in the multicentre study supported by the grant IGA NT 13660 Evaluation of quality of multimodal treatment for patients with colorectal cancer liver metastases - conducted at the Central Military Hospital between September 2012 and January 2015. We used LFA in 12 patients (12%). Patients were indicated for liver resection based on good response to neoadjuvant systemic therapy. Multiple bilobar liver involvement (>4 metastases) was present in 11 cases and one large solitary metastasis in the right liver lobe in one case. The primary tumor was located in the rectum in 9 patients, in the rectosigmoid in 3 patients; 3 patients had a colostomy. Others showed no signs of bowel obstruction.
Results: We have performed R0 resections in 11 cases, and two-stage hepatectomy with portal vein embolisation was indicated 3 times (in one case we did not finish the second stage due to quick progression after PVE). We performed major resections 7 times, along with sever extraanatomic resections, incl. 11 RFA (6 times in combination with major resections). Perioperative mortality was 0%, morbidity 33% (Dindo-Clavien >2). Ten patients underwent adjuvant chemotherapy, in 7 cases including radiotherapy of the small pelvis due to a local advanced primary tumor. Resection of the primary tumor was done in 7 patients (58%). Two patients died recently because of disease progression (17%); progression was observed in 6 patients (50%).
Conclusion: We deem the LFA suitable especially for patients with metastatic rectal tumors where adjuvant systemic therapy can be combined with radiotherapy. The timing of the resection of the primary tumor still remains a question: it is necessary to rule out potential recurrence of liver metastases, which affected more than 50% of the patients. The benefit of LFA must be confimed by randomised studies.