Surgical treatment of metastatic liver tumors.

Liver resection for limited amounts of metastatic cancer should be recommended to highly selected patients. It will provide a significant chance for "cure" for patients with metastases from colorectal cancers and may provide palliation for a few others with very slow-growing tumors or hormone symptoms from endocrine tumors. The results of resection are compared with those of chemotherapy, radiation, arterial ligation, and other treatments. Selection criteria, none of which is absolute, include number of metastases, stage of primary tumor, interval between resection of primary tumor and discovery of liver metastasis, and proximity to vital structures. The presence of extrahepatic metastasis, even if resected, carries with it a grim prognosis and should probably preclude liver resection.