Clinicopathologic Study on Liver Metastasis of Colo-Rectal Cancer -With Special Reference to Liver Metastasis and Venous Invasion-

Satoru Shirai, Shin Akimoto, Tatsuki Igarashi, Kazuyoshi Watanabe, Shigeo Kitabatake, Fumitaka Kohno, Yasunori Otashiro, Fujio Hanyu

Department of Gastroenterological Surgery, Tokyo Women's Medical College

In this study, 263 patients with resected colo-rectal cancer with deep penetration of ss, a₁ or greater were divided into three groups: 108 patients with synchronous liver metastasis, 44 with metachronous metastasis (both are referred to collectively as the liver metastasis group) and 111 patients who underwent curative resections with no recurrence for at least 5 years (no-recurrence group). Samples of all of the resected specimens were prepared by cutting them at right angles in two directions through the center of the tumor, and they were stained by Victoria blue-hematoxylin eosin double staining. The relation ship between the degree of venous invasion and liver metastasis was studied. In the liver metastasis group, subserosal venous invasion was seen in 117 cases (77.0%), which was significantly higher than the 20 cases (18.6%) in the no-recurrence group. When the relation ship between the maximum diameter of the vein with subserosal invasion and liver metastasis was investigated, there was a significantly higher rate of liver metastasis when the diameter was 400 µm or over and also significantly higher rates of synchronous liver metastasis when the diameter exceeded 800 µm. Liver metastasis in colo-rectal cancer showed a close correlation with the size of the invaded vein involved in subserosal layer.

Key words
liver metastasis of colo-rectal cancer, subserosal venous invasion, maximum diameter of vein invaded by cartinoma cells

Reprint requests
Satoru Shirai Department of Gastroenterological Surgery, Tokyo Women's Medical College
8-1 Kawada-cho, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, 162 JAPAN

Accepted
November 19, 1990

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