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Liver Metastases from Colorectal Cancer: Ultrasound Imaging

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Liver Cancer

Part of the book series: Methods of Cancer Diagnosis, Therapy and Prognosis ((HAYAT,volume 5))

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Colorectal cancer is the second largest cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States.

Approximately 15–20% of the patients with cancer of the colon and rectum have liver metastases at the time of primary surgery (Faivre et al., 2003). Assessment of liver metastases is essential for the appropriate management of colorectal cancer. Surgical resection is an effective treatment for hepatic metastases of colorectal cancer. However, this option is available only to a small group of patients. Preoperative portal vein embolization for hypertrophy of future hepatic resection and other pioneering multidisciplinary modalities and the aggressive surgical approach has been adopted to extend the frontiers of surgical therapy (Khatri et al., 2005). For the majo-rity of patients surgery is not a curative option, and only palliative therapy is available resulting in no long-term survivors. If left untreated the median survival is 6 months, but with modern combination chemothe-rapy a median survival of 24 month is possible. In a French study (Guyot et al., 2005) the proportion of patients with liver metastases resected with curative intent increased over time from 6% (1976–1984) to 30% (1994–2003).

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  1. Department of Radiology, Vejle Hospital, Kabbeltoft 25, Vejle, DK-7100, Denmark

    Søren R. Rafaelsen

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  1. Søren R. Rafaelsen
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  1. Department of Biological Sciences, Kean University, Union, NJ, USA

    M. A. Hayat  & M. A. Hayat  & 

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Rafaelsen, S.R. (2009). Liver Metastases from Colorectal Cancer: Ultrasound Imaging. In: Hayat, M.A. (eds) Liver Cancer. Methods of Cancer Diagnosis, Therapy and Prognosis, vol 5. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9804-8_28

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