Surgeon accuracy in the diagnosis of liver metastases at laparotomy.

An analysis has been performed of 116 patients with gastrointestinal cancer submitted to laparotomy. The chance of the operating surgeon wrongly assessing the liver as containing metastatic cancer was found to be of the order of 8%. Conversely, the chance of the surgeon wrongly assessing the liver as being free of macroscopic cancer was of the order of 6%, although in less than 3% of cases were there residual macroscopic liver metastases left behind after the surgeon had assessed the patient as being rendered cancer-free by radical surgery.