RESUMO
PURPOSE: Liver metastases are the major cause of cancer-related death in colorectal cancer patients with a tendency to recur in over 50 % of the cases even after curatively intended surgery. Prognosis after liver resection, however, can neither be based on macroscopic or light microscopic evaluation of the metastases nor on clinical data alone. This is a pilot study in order to determine a potential influence of chromosomal aberrations on overall survival and relapse rate after curative liver resection. METHODS: Twenty randomly selected cases (10 patients with a survival of more and 10 patients with a survival of less than 5 years after resection) were studied by array comparative genomic hybridization. RESULTS: The distributions concerning age, gender, stage and grading of primary tumor, percentage of patients with chemotherapy, number and distribution of the liver metastases, Nordlinger and Fong scores showed no differences between long- and short-term survivors and no correlation to any chromosomal aberration. However, the relapse rate of patients with (partial) monosomy 4 was lower and the long-time survival better than in the other patients. CONCLUSIONS: Loss of chromosome 4 in colorectal liver metastases seems not only to be associated with the progression of the primary tumor as reported in the literature, but also with the long-term survival and the cumulative relapse rate after complete resection of colorectal liver metastases.