Lionti S, et al. - Experts sought to explore the histopathological factors of liver metastases (LM) and the number of poorly differentiated clusters (PDC) of neoplastic cells in primary colorectal cancer (CRC) in order to determine the prognosis of subjects with CRC. Findings illustrated that PDC localization at the tumor edge of LM was a significant and independent prognosticator of shorter progression free survival (PFS). The inference drawn was that PDC presence and peripheral localization in LM could be relevant for speculating the outcome. These could be beneficial for clinical decision making in patients with colorectal synchronous LM.

Methods

• A scrutiny was performed of the PDC presence in the histological slides of surgically resected and synchronous LM.
• The study cohort consisted of 63 patients with CRC, who had been not submitted to any neo-adjuvant treatments.
• This was followed by an evaluation of its association with patients' cancer specific survival (CSS) or progression free survival (PFS).

Results

• It was reported that the presence of PDC (P=.016) and PDC localization at tumor edge of LM (P=.0004) exhibited a prominent link with shorter CSS.
• The independent prognostic variables for CSS were discovered to be the PDC presence at the periphery of LM and positive resection margin.
• Yielded data depicted that PDC localization at the tumor edge of LM was a significant (P=.0079) and independent prognosticator of shorter PFS.