One hundred and eighteen patients who suffered from metastatic liver tumors from colorectal carcinoma during the period from January 1980 to June 1991 at the National Taiwan University Hospital were retrospectively reviewed. The modes of treatment included hepatic resection (n = 18), transarterial embolization (TAE, n = 17), chemotherapy only (C/T, n = 36), and no treatment (n = 47). In the 18 patients who underwent hepatic resection during the last 10 years, the types of surgery included: wedge resection (n = 8), segmentectomy (n = 2), right hepatic lobectomy (n = 5), left hepatic lobectomy (n = 2) and extended right hepatic lobectomy (n = 1). There were no operative mortalities in this series. The overall three-year actuarial survival rate of the resection group was 57.5%. It was better than that of the TAG group (17%, p < 0.05). For a solitary tumor, the three-year actuarial survival rate rose to 64% in the resection group. There were no three-year survivors in the nonsurgical solitary tumor group. This experience defends aggressive surgical treatment of resectable hepatic metastatic liver cancer from colorectal carcinoma as a safe procedure which is able to prolong a patient's life.