Radiotherapy then chemotherapy before surgery may be best in rectal cancer

Reuters Health - 21/12/2020 - In patients with locally advanced rectal cancer, a short course of radiotherapy followed by chemotherapy preceding surgery appears to provide better results than the standard protocol of long-course chemoradiotherapy, surgery, and optional adjuvant chemotherapy, according to the RAPIDO trial. The current standard approach has improved locoregional control, but occurrence of distant metastases has not decreased accordingly, Dr. Geke A. P. Hospers of University Medical Center Groningen, in the Netherlands, and colleagues note in The Lancet Oncology. Surgery, they add, can safely be delayed after short-course radiotherapy, creating a window of opportunity to deliver chemotherapy preoperatively instead of postoperatively. This might reduce distant metastases without increasing the risk of locoregional failure. To investigate, the researchers randomized 920 patients to an experimental group who before surgery received short-course rad...

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Posted on 21 December, 20205 January, 2021