Surgery To Treat Rectal Cancer

Surgery To Treat Rectal Cancer.
For many rectal cancer patients, the anticipation of surgery is a worrisome reality, given that the action can significantly impair both bowel and sexual function. However, a green study reveals that some cancer patients may fare just as well by forgoing surgery in favor of chemotherapy/radiation and "watchful waiting". The pronouncement is based on a review of data from 145 rectal cancer patients, all of whom had been diagnosed with station I, II or III disease. All had chemotherapy and radiation.

But about half had surgery while the others staved off the operation in favor of rigorous tracking of their disease spreading - sometimes called "watchful waiting. We believe that our results will encourage more doctors to take into this 'watch-and-wait' approach in patients with clinical complete response as an alternative to immediate rectal surgery, at least for some patients," ranking study author Dr Philip Paty said in a gossip release from the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO).

So "From my experience, most patients are well-disposed to accept some risk to defer rectal surgery in hope of avoiding major surgery and preserving rectal function," said Paty, a surgical oncologist at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. The findings are to be presented Monday at the Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium in San Francisco. ASCO is one of four organizations sponsoring the symposium. Research presented at medical meetings should be viewed as initial until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

The exploration authors said that the category of patients who would most in all probability do well without triggered surgery are the up to 50 percent of stage I patients whose tumors typically evanesce altogether following initial chemotherapy/radiation treatment. That figure hovers at between 30 percent and 40 percent surrounded by stage II and III patients. The callow investigation looked at the experience of rectal cancer patients who were treated between 2006 and 2014 at Memorial Sloan-Kettering.

While all the patients had savvy complete tumor regression following chemotherapy/radiation, only some underwent spontaneous rectal surgery. The other 73 patients were instead followed with "watchful waiting," which involved consolidation exams every few months. Ultimately, nearly three-quarters of the non-surgery group remained cancer-free approximately four years later, while about one compassion had to undergo surgery to treat tumor recurrence boilx. Overall, the four-year survival berate was 91 percent in the no-surgery group vs 95 percent in the surgery group.