Rectal Cancer—Report of Symposium

Rectal cancer accounts for 5% of all deaths from cancer, and 1 0,000 new cases present each year. The overall five-year survival is 31 % and one of the most distressing forms of recurrence after surgery is local recurrence. What is surprising about this local recurrence is that it varies from surgeon to surgeon by from 5 to 35%.1 There is also the suspicion that with the introduction of stapling devices and increasing numbers of restorative procedures this local recurrence may be on the increase. So the patient with a cancer of the middle third of the rectum (up to 1 2 cm from the anal verge) is in the eye of a storm of