Clinical outcome of up-front surgery in patients with asymptomatic, incurable synchronous peritoneal carcinomatosis

Purposes The purpose of this study was to show the clinical features of up-front surgery of the primary tumor in asymptomatic patients with incurable colorectal PC. Methods Forty-six patients that were diagnosed between 1998 and 2007 with asymptomatic colorectal PC who could not be successfully cured by surgery were assessed retrospectively. Results A univariate analysis revealed the presence of liver metastases, without the use of oxaliplatin (OX)/irinotecan (IRI) and without a primary tumor resection to be poor prognostic factors for survival ( p = 0.044, p = 0.030, p < 0.001, respectively). According to a multivariate analysis, no use of OX/IRI and no primary tumor resection, were found to be independent poor prognostic factors for survival (HR 2.57; p = 0.047, HR 6.62; p = 0.003, respectively). The median survival time of patients treated with and without OX/IRI was 18 and 7 months, respectively. The median survival time of patients with and without primary tumor resection was 10 and 2 months, respectively. The number of patients needing surgical intervention for intestinal obstruction after surgery significantly increased in patients treated with OX/IRI ( p = 0.001). Conclusion Improvement of survival may be related to widespread use of modern systemic chemotherapy and primary tumor resection. However, an increased number of patients that needed surgery for an intestinal obstruction were observed, even after up-front surgery, when patients were treated with modern systemic chemotherapy.