LiT-Met
Project duration: July 2026 to June 2031
LiT-Met is a five-year European research project that aims to improve treatment for people with colorectal cancer that has spread to the liver.
Colorectal cancer begins in the colon or rectum. In many patients, cancer cells later spread to other parts of the body, most commonly the liver. This is known as colorectal liver metastasis. Although treatment has improved considerably, the disease remains difficult to manage, particularly when the tumours in the liver cannot be safely removed through conventional surgery.
Liver transplantation is already used to treat several serious liver diseases. Until recently, however, it was generally not considered suitable for people with colorectal liver metastases. New research has suggested that transplantation could offer encouraging outcomes for a small and carefully selected group of patients.
Important questions remain before this approach can be considered more widely. Doctors need better evidence about which patients are most likely to benefit, how transplantation compares with existing treatments and what the long-term outcomes may be. There are also wider questions about quality of life, the availability of donated organs, the cost of treatment and how access could be organised fairly across different European health systems.
LiT-Met has been created to address these questions.
Coordinated by the University of Bologna and funded through the Horizon Europe Cancer Mission, the project wants to collect and compare information from patients treated with liver transplantation and conventional liver surgery. Researchers will study survival, cancer recurrence and other treatment outcomes.
Artificial intelligence will be used to bring together different types of information, including clinical data, medical images and molecular characteristics. The aim is to help healthcare professionals make more personalised and evidence-based treatment decisions.
Ultimately, LiT-Met’s goal is to generate the evidence needed to inform future clinical guidelines and policy recommendations. It does not assume that liver transplantation will be appropriate for every patient. Instead, it seeks to establish when it may be beneficial, how patients should be selected and what would be required to introduce this treatment safely, sustainably and equitably.
ECO will help connect LiT-Met’s scientific work with the wider European cancer community and relevant policy discussions, support the translation of evidence into policy-relevant messages and recommendations.
