Current Surgical Management Strategies for Colorectal Cancer Liver Metastases

Simple Summary Colorectal cancer is one of the most common cancer diagnoses in the world. At least half of patients diagnosed with colorectal cancer will develop metastatic disease, with most being identified in the liver. Surgical resection of colorectal liver metastases (CRLM) is potentially curative. Surgical resection of CRLM, however, remains underutilized despite the continued expansion of operative strategies available. This is likely due to differing views on resectability. Resectability is a surgical assessment, and the classification of CRLM as unresectable should only be made by an experienced hepatobiliary surgeon. Obtaining a surgical evaluation at the time of liver metastasis discovery may help mitigate the challenge of assessing resectability and the determination of potential operative time windows within current multimodal management strategies. The aim of this review is to help facilitate discussions surrounding resectability as well as the timing and sequencing of both surgical and non-surgical therapies. Colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer diagnosis in the world, and the second most common cause of cancer-related deaths. Despite significant progress in management strategies for colorectal cancer over the last several decades, metastatic disease remains difficult to treat and is often considered incurable. However, for patients with colorectal liver metastases (CRLM), surgical resection offers the best opportunity for survival, can be curative, and remains the gold standard. Unfortunately, surgical treatment options are underutilized. Misperceptions regarding resectable and unresectable CRLM likely play a role in this. The assessment of factors that impact resectability status like medical fitness, technical considerations, and disease biology can be difficult, necessitating careful multidisciplinary input and discussion. The identification of ideal operative time windows that align with the multimodal management of these patients can also be perplexing. For all patients with CRLM it may therefore be advantageous to obtain surgical evaluation at the time of discovering liver metastases to mitigate these challenges and minimize the risk of undertreatment. In this review we summarize current surgical management strategies for CRLM and discuss factors to be considered when determining resectability.