Efficacy Of Primary Tumor Resection In Metastatic Colorectal Cancer

Background: The aim of this study was to evaluate the survival benefit of palliative primary tumor resection in colorectal cancer (CRC) patients with unresectable metastases.Material/Methods: Clinicopathological characteristics of eligible patients who underwent surgery to remove the primary tumor and those who did not between 2004 and 2013 were compared. We also evaluated the association between survival and different clinicopathologic characteristics in metastatic CRC.Results: The percentage of patients undergoing surgical resection of the primary tumor was higher during the earli- er years and trended toward less use of surgery in later years. Palliative primary tumor resection was strongly associated with better cause-specific survival (hazard ratio=0.403, 95% confidence interval=0.389 to 0.417, P<0.001).Conclusions: We added new strong evidence supporting the survival benefit of palliative resection, which should be con- firmed in future randomized controlled trials.