[Surgical innovations in treatment of metastatic colorectal cancer : Complexity of metastatic surgery as example for personalized medicine].

BACKGROUND: Extensive, bilobular and multifocal colorectal liver metastases (CLM) or metastases that are critically situated require an experienced surgeon and advanced surgical techniques to enable curative resection.

OBJECTIVE: This article describes the toolbox of hepato-oncologic surgery including functional augmentation of liver segments by portal vein embolization/ligation, combinations of ablation and resection, two-stage resections and in situ split liver resection, also known as associating liver partition and portal vein ligation for staged hepatectomy (ALPPS). Furthermore, the curative resection of extrahepatic, oligometastatic disease are briefly discussed.

MATERIAL AND METHODS: Review of current literature as well as discussion of the ALPPS procedure, which was developed at our institute.

RESULTS: In recent years, oncologic resections for CLM have been significantly refined, leading to a constant increase of curative resection rates.

CONCLUSION: In a multimodality treatment setting, surgical resection of CLM remains the gold standard curative approach and even in the event of presumed hopeless cases with extensive metastasis, experienced hepatobiliary surgeons must evaluate the resectability of colorectal metastases.