Surgery offers hope in bowel cancer treatment

Not everyone will benefit from operations but survival rates are

boosted dramatically in those whose cancer is operable.

Only 9 per cent of patients will survive for five years or more if their cancer is stage four and has spread but they do not have surgery.

A study from the National Cancer Intelligence Network (NCIN) shows that liver resection - removing the cancerous part of the liver and a small part of healthy tissue around it – can boost this five-year survival to 46 per cent.

This means patients with stage four disease have similar survival rates as people with stage three disease – before the cancer has spread – who have a 48 per cent chance of surviving.

The surgery has now become the gold standard across the UK for patients with this type of cancer.

Lead author Dr Eva Morris, a Cancer Research UK scientist from the University of Leeds, said: "The difference this surgery can make is remarkable.

"Cancer that has spread is often very hard to treat, so it's good to see that there's an effective treatment option for some patients with advanced bowel cancer.

"Smaller trials have shown us that this technique is effective, but this is the first time we've been able to say just how successful it is on a national scale.

"This surgery is very skilled and should be undertaken by expert

surgeons working in specialist liver units.

"We must work towards ensuring that all patients who need liver resections can access these services."

Bowel cancer is the third most common cancer in the UK and more than 37,400 cases are diagnosed each year.

Up to 25 per cent will have spread to the liver at the time of

diagnosis.

The study, published in the British Journal of Surgery, followed more than 114,000 people who had undergone surgery for bowel cancer and more than 3,000 who also had liver resections.