A Case of Hepatic Resection for Colorectal Hepatic Metastasis after Radio Frequency Ablation

Norihiko Furusawa, Shiro Miwa, Akira Kobayashi, Kazuhiko Nomura, Takenari Nakata, Shinichi Miyagawa and Waki Hosoda*

Department of Surgery and Department of Laboratory Medicine*, Shinshu University School of Medicine

We report a case of hepatic resection for hepatic metastasis from colorectal cancer after radio frequency ablation (RFA). A 50-year-old man had multiple liver metastasis from colorectal cancer, and was admitted for complete liver tumor removal after partial RFA elsewhere. CT after RFA showed that each RFA lesion was hypovascular areas, which was larger than the size of the corresponding metastatic tumor, indicating that ablation made each tumor complete necrosis. However, after hepatic resection including RFA ablated lesions, postoperative histopathological findings showed viable tumor cells in ablated lesions in all resected specimens. Hepatic resection is widely accepted as the treatment of choice in colorectal hepatic metastasis, but the definite efficacy of RFA has yet to be established. Serious post-RFA complications such as local recurrence and tumor seeding have been reported, indicating that RFA should be carefully considered before being attempted in treating colorectal hepatic metastasis.

Key words
radio frequency ablation, colorectal hepatic metastasis, hepatic resection

Reprint requests
Norihiko Furusawa Department of Surgery, Shinshu University School of Medicine
3-1-1 Asahi, Matsumoto, 390-8621 JAPAN

Accepted
July 26, 2006

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