Watch and wait in locally advanced rectal cancer: Evolution, current evidence, and future directions

Table 2 Clinical trials review in total neoadjuvant therapy in organ preserving therapy, %

Ref.	Clinical trials	Patients	Stage	Treatments1	pCR rates	Locorregional control	MFS	DFS
Bujko et al[118], 2016	POLISH II	261	T3-4	SCRT + CT	16	78	70	53
				RT + CT	12	79	73	52
Bahadoer et al[76], 2021	RAPIDO	462	T4, N2	SCRT + CT	28	92	80	76
				RT + CT	14	94	73	70
Conroy et al[78], 2021	UNICANCER-PRODIGE 23	231	T3-4, N1-2	CT + RT + CT	28	96	79	76
				RT + CT	13	94	72	69
Jin et al[120], 2022	STELLAR	298	T3-4, N1-2	SCRT + CT + CT	17	92	77	65
				RT + CT	12	89	75	62

¹Short course radiotherapy shows comparable disease-free survival to long-course radiotherapy but higher clinically complete response rates without differences in overall survival.

CT: Chemotherapy; DFS: Disease-free survival; MFS: Metastasis-free survival; pCR: Pathological complete response; RT: Radiotherapy; SCRT: Short course radiotherapy.