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“The Role of Primary Tumor Resection (PTR) in Metastatic Colorectal Cancer”

  • Therapeutic Approaches to Metastatic Colorectal Cancers (L Vecchione, Section Editor)
  • Published:
Current Colorectal Cancer Reports

Abstract

Patients with unresectable metastatic colorectal cancer can either receive systemic chemotherapy as first treatment or have a palliative resection of the primary tumor or endoscopic placement of a self-expanding metallic stent if they present with colonic obstruction. The ongoing dilemma is whether resection of the primary tumor in asymptomatic patients is beneficial. The effectiveness of current systemic treatment regimens on the primary tumor as well as the survival benefit of primary tumor resection in the era of new chemotherapy agents, biologics, and targeted therapy is underreported. No prospective randomized studies have yet been published; nevertheless, based on the available literature, it seems that primary tumor (PTR) can possibly improve short- and long-term outcome in highly selected patients with favorable characteristics, specifically low tumor burden and good performance status.

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Conflict of Interest

Ravit Geva and Hagit Tulchinsky declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Oncology, Tel Aviv Medical Center, affiliated to the Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Ravit Geva

  2. Division of Surgery, Tel Aviv Medical Center, affiliated to the Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Hagit Tulchinsky

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  1. Ravit Geva
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  2. Hagit Tulchinsky
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Correspondence to Ravit Geva.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Therapeutic Approaches to Metastatic Colorectal Cancers

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Geva, R., Tulchinsky, H. “The Role of Primary Tumor Resection (PTR) in Metastatic Colorectal Cancer”. Curr Colorectal Cancer Rep 11, 225–230 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11888-015-0281-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11888-015-0281-6

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