**1. Introduction**

Cancer is a major public health problem worldwide, and colorectal cancer is the third most diagnosed cancer among both men and women in the United States [1], Brazil [2] and, overall, it is the third more frequent malignant disease around the world (1.85 million of new cases/years; 10.2% of total malignancies), with a 2.27% cumulative risk of onset between 0 and 74 years [3].

The mortality from colorectal cancer varies with several factors from the genetic variations of disease to the developmental status of a nation. Tumor staging remains the main prognostic factor.

The last two decades have seen substantial progress in the treatments to metastatic disease offering significant improvements in survival. According to SEER, the 5-year relative survival rate for patients diagnosed from 2008 to 2012 was about 64% for all stages taken together, and it was 14% for patients with metastatic disease [4].

At the time of first diagnosis, approximately 25% of patients present stage IV, with liver metastases, and up to 50% will develop recurrence in the liver during the disease course [5]. Most of these patients have liver metastasis considered unresectable at presentation [6], but about 20–30% of patients have a resectable disease that is confined to the liver [3], and despite a metastatic diagnosis, a half these of patients may benefit from the surgical resection of liver metastasis with curative intent, with improvements in a 5-year survival [7].

Colorectal cancer survival disparities are largely driven by socioeconomic inequalities that result in differences in access to early detection tests, refinements in molecular diagnosis, and the receipt of timely, high-quality treatment [8].

Today, the median overall survival for patients with metastatic colorectal cancer being treated both in phase III trials and in large observational series or registries is about 30 months and is more than double that of 20 years ago [9]. These patients with unresectable disease remain incurable and the treatments are mainly palliative.

We performed a non-systematic literature review of the results of a search in PubMed® with terms "palliative care" and "colorectal cancer" published in the last 5 years without restrictions of language. We found 304 articles that were manually selected for reading and synthesis of this work.
