A reference centre for treating advanced cancers that have spread to the liver is being established at the hospital surgery clinic of First Moscow State Medical University (Sechenov University), the university’s press service told GxP News. The clinical team’s integrated approach is built around radical surgery, they added. Initial liver resection followed by chemotherapy achieves the highest five-year survival rates for these patients.
“Modern surgical hepatology has a range of effective methods for removing metastases, and it is clinically proven that this significantly extends patients’ lives,” said Professor Alexey Kotelnikov of the Department of Hospital Surgery No. 2. “If liver resection is performed followed by adjuvant chemotherapy, five-year survival rates range from 20% to 60%. With drug therapy alone, five-year survival is practically zero.”
The surgical approach is currently undervalued, Kotelnikov said, and treatment for patients with colorectal cancer metastases must be combined. Only radical surgery followed by chemotherapy guarantees the highest patient survival rates.
“In some cases, patients receive chemotherapy before surgery as well,” he explained. “These are patients with multiple liver metastases affecting both lobes, where there is a risk of missing microscopic metastases invisible to the naked eye. The patient then undergoes liver resection, followed by another course of chemotherapy.”
A multidisciplinary team of experts has been assembled to establish the reference centre for treating advanced cancer with liver metastases, said Yevgeny Tarabrin, director of the hospital surgery clinic.