Institutional guidelines and ongoing studies in management of liver tumours: the experience of the European Institute of Oncology

BACKGROUND An institutional task force on upper gastrointestinal tumours is active at the European Institute of Oncology (EIO). Members decided to collate the institutional guidelines on management of liver tumours (primary and metastatic) into a document. This article is aimed at presenting the current treatment guidelines as well as ongoing research protocols and trials in this field at the EIO. METHODS A steering committee convened to assign tasks to individual members. Contributions from experts in each treatment area were collated in a single document, in order to produce a draft for subsequent review from the aforementioned committee. Six drafts have been discussed and the final version approved. RESULTS Surgical, medical oncology, interventional radiology, nuclear medicine and radiation therapy approaches, their roles in management of liver tumours and ongoing research trials are presented and discussed in this article. CONCLUSIONS At the EIO a multi-disciplinary integrated approach to liver tumours is standard and several ongoing research projects are currently active in this field.