Oligometastases and Oligo-recurrence: The New Era of Cancer Therapy

• Published in: Japanese journal of clinical oncology Vol. 40; no. 2; pp. 107 - 111
• Main Authors: Niibe, Yuzuru, Hayakawa, Kazushige
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Oxford University Press 01-02-2010
• Subjects: Combined Modality Therapy - trends; Humans; local therapy; Neoplasm Metastasis - drug therapy; Neoplasm Staging; Neoplasms - drug therapy; Neoplasms - physiopathology; oligo-recurrence; oligometastases; paradigm shift; Recurrence; Review; systemic therapy; oligo-recurrence; local therapy; systemic therapy; oligometastases; paradigm shift
• ISSN: 0368-2811; 1465-3621
• DOI: 10.1093/jjco/hyp167

Recurrence or metastasis of cancer has been considered to occur in the last stage of the patient's life. However, the new notions of oligometastases and oligo-recurrence have been proposed and the paradigm shift in the conceptualization of cancer metastasis or cancer recurrence. Oligometastases is the state in which the patient shows distant relapse in only a limited number of regions. Local therapy such as surgery, radiotherapy and radiofrequency ablation for the relapsed sites could thus improve patient's survival. On the other hand, oligo-recurrence is a notion similar to oligometastases. However, the conditions of oligo-recurrence has a primary site of the cancer controlled, meaning that all gross recurrent or metastatic sites could be treated using local therapy.