BPG is committed to discovery and dissemination of knowledge
Letter to the Editor
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2026. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jan 14, 2026; 32(2): 114727
Published online Jan 14, 2026. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v32.i2.114727
Future directions of image-guided thermal ablation in colorectal cancer lung oligometastases
Yu-Yin Wang, Cui-Ping Zhang, Qing-Biao Zhang, Xing-Yan Le, Jun-Bang Feng, Chuan-Ming Li
Yu-Yin Wang, Qing-Biao Zhang, Xing-Yan Le, Jun-Bang Feng, Chuan-Ming Li, Department of Medical Imaging, Chongqing Emergency Medical Center, Chongqing University Central Hospital, School of Medicine, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400014, China
Cui-Ping Zhang, Department of Respiratory Medicine, Chongqing Emergency Medical Center, Chongqing University Central Hospital, School of Medicine, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400014, China
Co-first authors: Yu-Yin Wang and Cui-Ping Zhang.
Co-corresponding authors: Jun-Bang Feng and Chuan-Ming Li.
Author contributions: Wang YY and Zhang CP designed the letter, reviewed and edited the main document, and contributed equally to this study as co-first authors; Zhang QB, Le XY, Feng JB, and Li CM collected the data; Feng JB and Li CM made equal contributions as co-corresponding authors; all the authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Chuan-Ming Li, MD, Professor, Department of Medical Imaging, Chongqing Emergency Medical Center, Chongqing University Central Hospital, School of Medicine, Chongqing University, No. 1 Jiankang Road, Yuzhong District, Chongqing 400014, China. lichuanming@hospital.cqmu.edu.cn
Received: September 27, 2025
Revised: October 27, 2025
Accepted: December 2, 2025
Published online: January 14, 2026
Processing time: 106 Days and 23.6 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: Colorectal cancer with lung oligometastases, especially when accompanied by extrapulmonary lesions, remains a major therapeutic challenge. Image-guided thermal ablation is a potentially effective minimally invasive local therapy, but current practice has several limitations: The absence of pathological confirmation for some metastatic sites, follow-up dependency on dynamic contrast-enhanced-computed tomography and vulnerability to inflammatory interference, a lack of control groups receiving other standard local treatments, and small sample sizes in certain subgroups. Future studies should improve pathological sampling, incorporate functional imaging, such as fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography, and increase the sample size to provide more reliable evidence for individualized therapy.