Risk of synchronous and metachronous liver resection for colorectal cancer metastases.

There is a discussion if the synchronous large bowel and liver metastatic lesions should be operated at the same time. It is the reason why we tried to find the answer based of our material. We analysed 331 liver resections due to metastatic lesions on the liver. In 61 cases (18.4%) the metastatic tumors were synchronous with large bowel tumors. The synchronic liver resections and large bowel resections were performed in 26 patient's (7.8%) and metachronic resection in 305 cases (92.2%). The policy of our Department is to perform liver resection before large bowel resection in synchronic tumors. The morbidity in the whole material was 19.0%, and mortality 3.3%. The complications ratio in synchronous liver resection was 23.1% and 17.9% in metachronic liver resection. The mortality was 3.9% in synchronous and 3.3% in metachronous liver resection. We concluded that the difference between complications and mortality in synchronous and metachronous liver resection was very little. That means that there is no risk of synchronous liver and large bowel resection.