Oligometastases and Oligo-recurrence

The New Era of Cancer Therapy

Niibe, Yuzuru
Hayakawa, Kazushige

Department of Radiation Oncology, Kitasato University School of Medicine, Sagamihara, Kanagawa, Japan

For reprints and all correspondence: Yuzuru Niibe, Department of Radiaion Oncology, Kitasato University School of Medicine 1-15-1, Kitasato, Sagamihara, Kanagawa 228-8555, Japan. E-mail: [email protected]

Japanese Journal of Clinical Oncology 40(2):p 107-111, February 2010.

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.