[Long-term survival after hepatectomy for metastatic liver cancer originating from colorectal carcinoma: presentation of two clinical cases].

: We report two case histories of long surviving patients after resection of liver methastases from colorectal cancer. In the first case the patient underwent a right hepatectomy to resect a 3 cm-lesion revealed by a CT scan three years after surgery for a rectal adenocarcinoma. Subsequently, she received two cycles of 5-day continuous infusion of fluorouracil. Four years and 11 months after hepatectomy, the patient is alive and free of disease. The second patient underwent resection of a large hepatic methastasis 3 months after left emicolectomy. The lesion substituted almost completely the right lobe and extended to the IV segment of the left lobe of the liver. After hepatectomy, the patient had a disease-free survival longer than 10 years, until a chest X-ray and a CT scan revealed a primary right lung cancer (citologically, adenocarcinoma) with a methastasis in the left lung. Surgical resection represents the only potentially curative therapy for hepatic methastases from colorectal cancer. Recent data about patient selection for hepatic methastasectomy are presented, and the opportunity of postoperative chemotherapy is discussed.