Long-term survival without surgery following a complete response to pre-operative chemoradiotherapy for rectal cancer: A case series

Pre-operative chemoradiotherapy (CRT) for rectal cancer yields a complete tumor response in 10–30% of patients. There is an argument for omitting surgery in these patients, but this remains highly controversial and the supporting evidence based on long-term follow-up is lacking. The present study analyzed the long-term outcomes of five patients with cT3 or cT4 rectal cancer who showed a clinical complete response (ycCR) following pre-operative CRT and underwent no surgery. The ycCR status was determined 7–12 weeks after the completion of CRT using clinical, endoscopic and radiological studies, including magnetic resonance imaging and biopsy. The follow-up period was 54–101 months. Three patients had no tumor recurrence and were alive with no evidence of disease at 101, 100 and 93 months, respectively. One patient developed local recurrence at 59 months and another developed lung metastasis at 32 months. The two patients with tumor recurrence remained disease-free 42 and 22 months after salvage pelvic and thoracic surgery, respectively. Despite being a small series, the long-term survival outcomes of the present study indicate that a non-operative approach may be feasible for a proportion of rectal cancer patients who reveal a ycCR following pre-operative CRT.