Liver metastasis rare in colorectal cancer patients with fatty liver.
OBJECTIVE
As no reports in terms of the relationship between fatty liver and liver metastasis of colorectal cancer clinicopathological analysis of colorectal cancer patients with fatty were found a liver was carried out.


METHODS
Among 839 patients with single colorectal carcinoma who underwent operations at our department between 1985 and 1994, 121 patients were designated as fatty liver using ultrasonography (FL group). The remaining 718 non-fatty liver patients with colorectal cancer (NFL group) were compared to the FL group regarding clinicopathological aspects.


RESULTS
(1) There were only two patients who had liver metastasis in the FL group (1.7%), while the NFL group included 115 patients with liver metastasis (16.0%) (p < 0.01). (2) The five-year survival rate of the FL group was 95.7%, which was significantly higher than that in the NFL group (9.8%) (p < 0.001). (3) In the multivariate analysis, the fatty liver was identified as an independent prognostic factor.


CONCLUSIONS
The FL group had a much better prognosis compared to the NFL group. Especially, liver metastasis was extremely rare in the FL group. We believe that these results will lead to the clarification of the liver metastasis mechanism.
Hayashi
S
S
Third Department of Surgery, Nihon University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan.
Masuda
H
H
Shigematsu
M
M
D000230:Adenocarcinoma / Q000150:complications / Q000401:mortality / Q000556:secondary*; D015179:Colorectal Neoplasms / Q000150:complications / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology*; D005234:Fatty Liver / Q000150:complications* / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008113:Liver Neoplasms / Q000150:complications / Q000401:mortality / Q000556:secondary*; D008207:Lymphatic Metastasis; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009361:Neoplasm Invasiveness; D011379:Prognosis; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D015996:Survival Rate