Simultaneous Minimally Invasive Treatment of Colorectal Neoplasm with Synchronous Liver Metastasis

Purpose. To analyse perioperative and oncological outcomes of minimally invasive simultaneous resection of primary colorectal neoplasm with synchronous liver metastases. Methods. A Medline revision of the current published literature on laparoscopic and robotic-assisted combined colectomy with hepatectomy for synchronous liver metastatic colorectal neoplasm was performed until February 2015. The specific search terms were liver metastases, hepatic metastases, colorectal, colon, rectal, minimally invasive, laparoscopy, robotic-assisted, robotic colorectal and liver resection, synchronous, and simultaneous. Results. 20 clinical reports including 150 patients who underwent minimally invasive one-stage procedure were retrospectively analysed. No randomized trials were found. The approach was laparoscopic in 139 patients (92.7%) and robotic in 11 cases (7.3%). The rectum was the most resected site of primary neoplasm(52.7%) and combined liver procedure was in 89% of cases a minor liver resection. One patient (0.7%) required conversion to open surgery. The overall morbidity and mortality rate were 18% and 1.3%, respectively. The most common complication was colorectal anastomotic leakage. Data concerning oncologic outcomes were too heterogeneous in order to gather definitive results. Conclusion. Although no prospective randomized trials are available, one-stage minimally invasive approach seems to show advantages over conventional surgery in terms of postoperative short-term course. On the contrary, more studies are required to define the oncologic values of the minimally invasive combined treatment.