Risk factors for the development of low anterior resection syndrome

Abstract

Disorders of defecatory function are common after treatment for rectal cancer, especially following restorative proctectomy and radiotherapy, administered either in the neoadjuvant or postoperative adjuvant setting. The low anterior resection score (LARS) score is the most widely used questionnaire for assessing bowel function after restorative proctectomy. However, the LARS score, despite providing an effective means to pool data for meta-analyses and prediction modelling, has limitations because of the lack of a precise definition of LARS. An international consensus definition was only recently established, and further work is required to convert this into a scoring system that can hopefully more accurately quantify and discriminate changes that occur over time and with treatment. Only then will we be able to identify true and actionable risk factors for LARS.