Local Excision Versus Total Mesorectal Excision After Favourable Response to Neoadjuvant Therapy in Low Rectal Cancer: a Multi-centre Experience.

Abstract

The gold standard surgical management of curable rectal cancer is proctectomy with total mesorectal excision. Adding preoperative radiotherapy improved local control. The promising results of neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy raised the hopes for conservative, yet oncologically safe management, probably using local excision technique. This study is a prospective comparative phase III study, where 46 rectal cancer patients were recruited from patients attending Oncology Centre of Mansoura University and Queen Alexandra Hospital Portsmouth University Hospital NHS with a median follow-up 36months. The two recruited groups were as follows: group (A), 18 patients who underwent conventional radical surgery by TME; and group (B), 28 patients who underwent trans-anal endoscopic local excision. Patients of resectable low rectal cancer (below 10 cms from anal verge) with sphincter saving procedures were included: cT1-T3N0. The median operative time for LE was 120min versus 300 in TME (p < 0.001), and median blood loss was 20ml versus 100ml in LE and TME, respectively (p < 0.001). Median hospital stay was 3.5days versus 6.5days (p = 0.009). No statistically significant difference in median DFS (64.2months for LE versus 63.2months for TME, p = 0.85) and median OS (72.9months for LE versus 76.3months for TME, p = 0.43). No statistically significant difference in LARS scores and QoL was observed between LE and TME (p = 0.798, p = 0.799). LE seems a good alternative to radical rectal resection in carefully selected responders to neoadjuvant therapy after thorough pre-operative evaluation, planning and patient counselling.