Liver metastases found by follow-up of patients operated on for colorectal cancer.

One hundred and twenty-six patients earlier operated on for colorectal cancer were followed-up once yearly with serum screening tests. The activities of alkaline phosphatase (AP) and gammaglutamyltranspeptidase (GT) were recorded. 58 patients had positive tests. The majority of the patients with liver metastases (20/21) was possible to encircle with these simple serum tests. 38 of the 58 "screening positive patients" were further investigated with celiac angiography and/or liver scintigraphy and liver metastases were very suspect in 29 of these patients. 18 of them were laparotomized and the suspicion was verified in 8.7 of these patients could be subjected to surgery against their liver tumours and 2 of them have then survived more than 2 years. The authors suggest a follow-up system with shorter interval between the examinations.