Safety of hepatic resection in metastatic disease to the liver after yttrium-90 therapy.

BACKGROUND: Unresectable hepatic metastases from aerodigestive cancers are common and in most cases herald a poor prognosis. A small percentage of patients maybe amenable to surgical resection or ablation once the biology of the disease and the burden of hepatic disease are better understood. The use of hepatic arterial resin microspheres containing the β emitter, yttrium-90, has been reported in the treatment of unresectable hepatic metastases. The goal of this review was to evaluate the use of yttrium-90 hepatic arterial therapy in the management of hepatic metastases and surgical downstaging.
METHODS: We reviewed our prospective hepatic arterial therapy registry and found 44 patients who had received Sir Sphere treatment for unresectable hepatic malignancies from 11/06 to 7/08. Response was assessed by using CT-imaging and characterized using modified response evaluation criteria in solid tumors (RECIST). All patients were managed in a multidisciplinary tertiary referral center specializing in hepatic malignancies.
RESULTS: A total of 44 patients, 34 men and 10 women, with a median age of 60 y (range 44-8), received 67 treatments. The disease types treated were one adenosquamous tongue, one adrenal, nine carcinoid, three cholangiocarcinoma, four esophageal, one gastric, one gastrinoma, one GIST, four HCC, 15 colorectal, one melanoma, one non-small-cell lung, one occular, and one sarcoma. Four patients treated proceeded to resection because of downstaging of disease or no evidence of extrahepatic progression. The median age in these patients was 61 y (range 49-62). All of the patients had less than 25% tumor burden in the liver. Surgical therapy consisted of two patients undergoing right hepatic lobectomy, one patient who also underwent two wedge resections of segment 3, and one patient who had a left lateral hepatectomy with right lobe microwave ablation. The median length of postoperative stay was 7 d. There was no evidence of liver dysfunction following resection in any of the patients. None of the patients show evidence of recurrence in the liver following resection. One patient has had progression of disease in the lungs following resection, histologically confirmed as metastatic rectal carcinoma. All of the patients are currently alive with a median survival of 2 y.
CONCLUSION: Hepatic directed yttrium-90 is a minimally invasive, highly effective therapy that can be utilized to downstage the hepatic burden and/or assess the biology of the disease to allow for appropriate treatment. The use of yttrium-90 microspheres for radio-embolization of metastases in the liver can successfully downstage the lesions to allow for surgical resection in patients with amenable predictors, and can provide a significantly better prognosis in these patients. This form of therapy for the purposes of downstaging tumors for resection merits more extensive study in order to provide the best possible outcomes for patients with metastatic liver disease.