Liver Metastases and Histological Growth Patterns: Biological Behavior and Potential Clinical Implications—Another Path to Individualized Medicine?

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Liver Metastases and Histological Growth Patterns: Biological Behavior and Potential Clinical Implications—Another Path to Individualized Medicine?

Monday, 22.04.2019

Despite advances in medicine, colorectal cancer is still a major health problem, with a major percentage of patients developing metastatic liver disease. Surgery, in these situations, is essential, however even in selected cases and in association with neoadjuvant chemotherapy, intrahepatic recurrence may occur. New, simple, faster and reproducible prognostic are demanded. Histological growth patterns have emerged over the past years and have been demonstrated as easy to apply and with very low costs since it only needs the standard Haematoxylin and Eosin stained slides of observation. In this article, we provide a review of the histological growth patterns of liver metastases and their prognostic significance, biological meaning and therapeutic importance.

 

Authors and Affiliations:

Rui Caetano Oliveira,1,2,3 Henrique Alexandrino,3,4,5 Maria Augusta Cipriano,1 and José Guilherme Tralhão2,3,4,5

1Pathology Department, Centro Hospitalar e Univeristário de Coimbra, 3000-075, Coimbra, Portugal

2Biophysics Institute, Faculty of Medicine, University of Coimbra, 3000-548 Coimbra, Portugal

3Coimbra Institute for Clinical and Biomedical Research (iCBR) area of Environment Genetics and Oncobiology (CIMAGO), Faculty of Medicine, University of Coimbra, 3000-548 Coimbra, Portugal

4Surgery Department, Centro Hospitalar e Universitário de Coimbra, 3000-075, Coimbra, Portugal

5Faculty of Medicine, University of Coimbra, 3000-548, Coimbra, Portugal

 

Abstract:

Colorectal cancer is a major health burden and despite the recent advances in healthcare and screening programs, a great percentage of patients already present metastases once their disease is found. In those cases, liver surgery has an essential role, but even with neoadjuvant chemotherapy there is a high rate of intrahepatic recurrence. New prognostic factors are needed in order to decide the best surgical approach considering the biological behavior of the tumors in order to tailor the used therapies, moving towards individualized medicine/treatment. However, the majority of the factors described in literature are expensive, time consuming, and difficult to apply on a daily basis. Histological growth patterns have emerged over the past few years as a reproducible characteristic, an easy to apply one, and with very low costs since it only needs the standard Haematoxylin and Eosin stained slides of observation. In this article, we provide a review of the histological growth patterns of liver metastases and their prognostic significance, biological meaning, and therapeutic importance.

 

Journal: Journal of Oncology

 

Linkhttps://www.hindawi.com/journals/jo/2019/6280347/