Primary tumor resection with or without metastasectomy for left- and right-sided stage IV colorectal cancer: an instrumental variable analysis

BACKGROUND: Whether primary tumor location (PTL) is predictive of survival benefits following primary tumor resection plus metastasectomy (PMTR) and primary tumor resection (PTR) alone in stage IV colorectal cancer patients is not known. We sought to address this issue by employing instrumental variable analysis to evaluate the efficacy of PMTR and PTR with stratification for primary tumor location in stage IV colorectal cancer patients. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Stage IV colorectal cancer patients diagnosed between January 1, 2005 and December 31, 2015 were identified from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program of the National Cancer Institute. To account for both measured and unmeasured confounders, the efficacy of PMTR and PTR in the left- and right-sided subgroups was evaluated using instrumental variable analysis, with the health service area as the instrument variable. Overall survival (OS) was the primary outcome of interest. RESULTS: A total of 50,333 eligible patients were analyzed (left-sided, n = 29,402 and right-sided, n = 20,931). OS was significantly better with PMTR than with other treatments (PTR, metastasectomy only, or no surgery) in patients with left-sided tumors (hazard ratio [HR] = 0.37 [95% CI 0.24–0.58], P < 0.001), but not in patients with right-sided tumors (HR = 0.98 [95% CI 0.65–1.47], P = 0.910; interaction test P < 0.001). OS was comparable in patients treated with PTR and those treated with no surgery in both the left-sided (HR = 1.11 [95% CI 0.68–1.81], P = 0.690) and right-sided (HR = 0.85 [95% CI 0.50–1.43], P = 0.530; interaction test P = 0.466) subgroups. CONCLUSIONS: PMTR appears to only benefit patients with left-sided stage IV colorectal cancer but not those with right-sided tumors. PTR does not improve OS, regardless of primary tumor location. When selecting patients for PMTR, primary tumor location should be considered. Overuse of PTR should be avoided. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12876-022-02184-2.