Revised: December 16, 2013
Accepted: January 6, 2014
Published online: February 28, 2014
The prognosis of patients with metastatic liver disease remains dismal with a median survival of only 6-12 mo. As 80%-90% of patients are not candidates for surgical therapy, there is a need for effective non-surgical therapies that would improve outcomes in these patients. The body of evidence related to the use of stereotactic ablative radiotherapy (SABR) in metastatic liver disease has substantially grown and evolved over the past decade. This review summarizes the current evidence supporting liver SABR with particular attention given to patient selection, target delineation, organ at risk dose volume constraints, response evaluation imaging and the various SABR techniques for delivering ablative radiotherapy to the liver. Even though it is unclear what dose-fractionation scheme, delivery system, concomitant therapy or patient selection strategy yields the optimum liver SABR outcomes, clear and growing evidence is available that SABR is a safe and effective therapy for the treatment of oligometastatic liver disease.
Core tip: The body of evidence related to the use of stereotactic ablative radiotherapy (SABR) in metastatic liver disease has substantially grown and evolved over the past decade. This review summarizes the current evidence supporting liver SABR with particular attention given to patient selection, target delineation, organ at risk dose volume constraints, response evaluation imaging and the various SABR techniques for delivering ablative radiotherapy to the liver.