New Trends in Rectal Cancer Surgery Case of the Practice

BACKGROUND: Sphincter preservation, disease control, and long-term survival are the main goals in the treatment of rectal cancer. Although transanal local excision is attractive because it is a sphincter sparing procedure, some contradictory data exist in the literature about its ability to locally control disease and provide overall survival comparable with radical procedures, even for patients with early stage tumor. In patients with early rectal cancer (T1), local excision may be an alternative approach in highly selected patiients. For more advanced rectal cancer, radical surgical resection is the treatment of choice. METHODS: We reviewed the literature to identify the current recurrence and survival rates of both techniques as well as the salvage surgery success, only 1 study was prospective, 5 were comparative, and 5 were case reports. We present a case report of a woman with local excision of rectal tumor. Five years later a rectal recurrence has showed up. We describe the case and make some conclusions.