Current evidence on microwave ablation for treating liver metastases raises no major safety concerns and the evidence on efficacy is adequate in terms of tumour ablation. Therefore this procedure may be used provided that standard arrangements are in place for clinical governance, consent and audit.
Patient selection should be carried out by a hepatobiliary cancer multidisciplinary team.
Further research would be useful for guiding selection of patients for this procedure. This should document the site and type of the primary tumour being treated, the intention of treatment (palliative or curative), imaging techniques used to assess the efficacy of the procedure, long‑term outcomes and survival.