[Surgical therapy of liver metastases. Therapeutic procedures, results and prognostic factors].

In a period of 7 years, 151 patients were treated by resection and/or regional chemotherapy after liver metastases from various primary tumours. The subgroup of patients with colorectal liver metastases was evaluated separately from the heterogeneous group with any other primaries. Radical resection of colorectal liver metastases was followed by a 5-year survival of 17%. The time from resection of the primary to development of the metastatic lesions was shown by univariate and multivariate analysis to be the most important prognostic factor. Adjuvant regional chemotherapy failed to improve outcome after curative resection of liver metastases. Neither palliative regional chemotherapy in cases of diffuse hepatic metastases nor the combination of palliative resection with regional or systemic chemotherapy significantly prolonged survival.