How to Integrate Surgery into the Multidisciplinary Treatment of Liver-Only Metastatic Colorectal Cancer.

Background

Colorectal liver metastases (CRLM) represent a major determinant of prognosis in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer and account for a substantial proportion of cancer-related mortality worldwide. Over the last decades, survival outcomes have improved significantly as a result of advances in systemic therapies, refinement of surgical techniques, and, most importantly, the widespread implementation of multidisciplinary management strategies. Within this evolving landscape, surgery remains the cornerstone of potentially curative treatment, although its optimal integration with systemic and locoregional therapies requires careful patient selection and individualized treatment planning.

Methods

This narrative review explores the contemporary role of surgery within the multidisciplinary management of CRLM, emphasizing how surgical decision-making is integrated with medical oncology, radiology, interventional procedures, and emerging technologies.

Results

The pivotal role of multidisciplinary team meetings in defining resectability, treatment sequencing, and therapeutic intent is highlighted. Key technical and oncological criteria guiding upfront resection, neoadjuvant or conversion strategies, and staged approaches are reviewed, including assessment of future liver remnant, optimization of liver volume and function, tumor burden, molecular profile, and dynamic prognostic models. In addition, the review summarizes current evidence supporting parenchyma-sparing liver surgery and the integration of local therapies such as thermal ablation, irreversible electroporation, stereotactic body radiotherapy, selective internal radiation therapy, and hepatic artery infusion chemotherapy within multimodal treatment algorithms. Complex clinical scenarios, including synchronous disease, extensive bilobar metastases, chemotherapy-associated liver injury, and the emerging role of liver transplantation in highly selected patients with liver-only disease, are also addressed.

Conclusions

Modern CRLM management has evolved toward a highly individualized, biology-driven approach in which surgery is optimally integrated within a multidisciplinary framework to maximize curative potential and long-term survival.