Colorectal cancer liver metastasis: turning the impossible into possible

  Cancer is a common fear among people. One of the reasons why cancer is scary is that cancer cells will run around, which is called metastasis in medical science.  Colon cancer and rectal cancer, collectively known as colorectal cancer, are common malignant tumors, and the incidence and mortality rate of colorectal cancer in China are increasing year by year. According to statistics, the incidence rate of colorectal cancer in China is 23.03/100,000 and the mortality rate is 11.11/100,000. Most patients are already in the middle and late stages when they are found. The problem is that some people who have colon cancer give up treatment once the examination reveals that the cancer cells have metastasized to the liver, thinking that it is late stage. Patients and family members naturally suffer, but from the medical point of view, it is really regrettable to give up treatment at will.  Although cancer metastasis is terrible, it is not without medicine and technology. Especially for colorectal cancer liver metastasis, there are still many opportunities for treatment. Therefore, you should never give up lightly, you must keep a good attitude and actively cooperate with the treatment.  Case study: The patient was diagnosed with liver metastasis of rectal cancer more than one month ago, and both metastases were located in the right anterior lobe of liver, with sizes of 46mm*48mm and 61mm*60mm respectively. 41mm. During chemotherapy, the patient only had hypocellularity and no other discomfort. At this point, the patient was given the opportunity to undergo radical surgery for both the primary and metastatic foci.    Figures 1 and 2 show before chemotherapy, and Figures 3 and 4 show after two neoadjuvant chemotherapy sessions.  However, this patient was of advanced age and had poor pulmonary function, and could not tolerate prolonged surgery, so whether to use simultaneous surgery for the primary and liver metastases in one stage or to remove them in two stages still needed careful consideration. In the past, in order to disperse the surgical trauma and reduce the surgical risk, a staged surgery was often used, usually dealing with the primary colorectal cancer first and then removing the liver metastases. However, because of two surgeries, it not only fails to reduce the overall incidence of anesthesia and surgical complications, but also prolongs the total hospitalization time, increases the total hospitalization cost, and brings more psychological burden to patients. In conclusion, we successfully performed the surgical protocol of laparoscopic radical rectal cancer + laparoscopic radiofrequency ablation of liver metastases, which significantly shortened the operation time, reduced the surgical trauma, maximized the effective remaining volume of the liver, avoided a series of complications of extensive liver resection, and avoided two surgical blows and reduced the psychological burden based on the completion of radical surgery.  What remains on the patient after the surgery is completed is only a few small incisions of 5mm or 10mm, and he can get out of bed the next day.