Update on treatment of liver metastases: focus on ablation therapies

There is substantial and growing interest in the use of local therapies to treat patients with metastatic cancer, especially those deemed to have "oligometastatic" disease. Much of the literature to date consists of reports on metastasectomy for liver and lung metastases. Non-surgical minimally or non-invasive treatments including thermal ablation, irreversible electroporation, and high-dose radiation therapy (stereotactic ablative radiation therapy) can also be used in the treatment of primary and secondary tumors, including in the treatment of liver metastases. In this review, we discuss the rationale for using these ablative treatments in the treatment of liver metastases including similarities and differences between them.