The impact of adjuvant chemotherapy on survival in mucinous and non-mucinous rectal adenocarcinoma patients after TME surgery

INTRODUCTION: The value of adjuvant chemotherapy for rectal cancer patients is debated and varies in different subgroups. One such subgroup is mucinous adenocarcinoma (MAC), which is more treatment resistant compared to non-mucinous adenocarcinoma (NMAC). To date, mucinous histology is not taken into account when deciding on adjuvant treatment strategy. This is the first study to exclusively include patients with rectal cancer, then separate MAC and NMAC and compare the survival in patients that had or did not have adjuvant chemotherapy. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The study included retrospective register data from 365 Swedish patients with stage II-IV rectal adenocarcinoma, 56 patients with MAC and 309 patients with NMAC. All patients were considered curative, had surgery with total mesorectal excision in 2004–2013, and were followed up until death or 2021. RESULTS: Patients with MAC that had adjuvant chemotherapy had better overall survival (OS, HR 0.42; CI 95%: 0.19–0.93; p = 0.032) and a trend towards better cancer-specific survival (CSS, HR 0.41 CI 95%: 0.17–1.03; p = 0.057) compared to patients without chemotherapy (HR 0.42; CI 95%: 0.19–0.93; p = 0.032). The difference in OS was still significant even after adjusting for sex, age, stage, differentiation, neoadjuvant chemotherapy and preoperative radiotherapy (HR 0.40; CI 95%: 0.17–0.92; p = 0.031). There was no such difference in the NMAC patients except in the stage-by-stage subgroup analyses where patients in stage IV had better survival after adjuvant chemotherapy. CONCLUSIONS: There may be a difference in treatment response to adjuvant chemotherapy between MAC and NMAC patients. Patients with MAC could possibly benefit from adjuvant chemotherapy in stages II-IV. Further studies are however needed to confirm these results.