Liver metastasis is one of the most frequent forms of hematogenous spread of gastric cancers the proportion of gastric cancers metastasizing to the liver ranges from 3.7% to 11%. Most cases of liver metastases from gastric cancer involve both lobes of the liver and are accompanied by peritoneal dissemination, extensive lymph node metastases, or direct invasion to adjacent organs; the rate of hepatic resection in such cases ranges from only 0.5% to 2.3%. Moreover, the survival outcomes for hepatic resection of gastric cancer liver metastases have beem unsatisfactory.

However, there have been isolated reports of long-term improved survival after aggressive surgical treatments for this disease in highly selected patients. Some authors reported that curative resection for metachronous liver metastases might allow long-term survival in selected patients. Other reported that the median survival for metachronous hepatic metastases was better than that of synchronous metastases (74.3 months vs. 13.0 months), and that surgical management should be considered for solitary hepatic lesions as a treatment option. If there is a solitary hepatic metastasis, complete surgical resection of the tumor may be the only chance to cure the disease.

In our institute, the survival of gastric cancer with liver metastasis only was evaluated in 41 patients and concluded that surgery for liver metastases arising from gastric adenocarcinoma is reasonable if complete resection is possible. Although there is no sufficient data for the benefit of surgical resection of liver metastasis from gastric cancer, hepatic resection would be considered as an option for selected gastric cancerpatients with liver metastasis.