Liver metastases in colon cancer

Liver metastases are found at diagnosis in up to 25% of patients with colorectal cancer (CRC) and they appear during the first 3 years following diagnosis in another 40-50% [1]. Although liver resection is currently the only therapy producing long-term cure, at diagnosis 80% of patients are not considered to be candidates for resection because of the size, location, and extent of their disease. Radiofrequency ablation has been proposed as an alternative to surgery, but at present its effectiveness in terms of local disease control is still inferior to that of liver resection [2]. Transhepatic arterial chemoembolization (TACE) and transarterial 90Y radioembolization (TARE) are more recent techniques that have been evaluated in patients with locally advanced disease; however only preliminary data are available [3,4] and larger studies are needed to better evaluate these treatments.