Predictive factors of long-term colorectal cancer survival after ultrasound-controlled ablation of hepatic metastases.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: The risk factors associated to long-term survival were assessed in patients with liver metastases of colorectal carcinoma undergoing ablative therapies.

PATIENTS AND METHODS: Single-centre cohort study, retrospectively analysed and prospectively collected consecutive patients with unresectable metastatic liver disease of colorectal carcinoma treated with ablative therapies between 1996 and 2013. Factors associated with survival time were identified using Cox's proportional hazard model with time-dependent covariates. A forward variable selection based on Akaike information criterion was performed. Relative risk and 95% confidence intervals for each factor were calculated. Statistical significance was set as P<.05.

RESULTS: Seventy-five patients with liver metastases of colorectal cancer, with a mean age of 65.6 (10.3) underwent 106 treatments. Variables selected were good quality of life (RR 0.308, 95% CI 0.150-0.632) and tumour extension (RR 3.070, 95% CI 1.776-5.308). The median overall survival was 18.5 months (95% CI 17.4-24.4). The survival prognosis in median was 13.5 vs. 23.4 months for patients with and without tumour extension, and 23.0 vs. 12.8 months for patients with good and fair or poor quality of life, respectively.

CONCLUSIONS: Good quality of life and tumour extension were the only statistically significant predictors of long-term survival in patients of colorectal carcinoma with liver metastatic disease undergoing ablative treatment with ultrasound.