Copyright
©The Author(s) 2020. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Aug 14, 2020; 26(30): 4394-4414
Published online Aug 14, 2020. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v26.i30.4394
Published online Aug 14, 2020. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v26.i30.4394
Role of minimally invasive surgery for rectal cancer
Kurt A Melstrom, Andreas M Kaiser, Division of Colorectal Surgery, Department of Surgery, City of Hope National Medical Center, Duarte, CA 91010-3000, United States
Author contributions: Melstrom KA and Kaiser AM contributed to concept, manuscript writing/editing.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Dr. Kaiser reports personal fees from Intuitive Surgical, other from McGraw-Hill Publisher, other from Uptodate, outside the submitted work.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Andreas M Kaiser, FACS, MD, Chief Physician, Full Professor, Division of Colorectal Surgery, Department of Surgery, City of Hope National Medical Center, 1500 E Duarte Road, Suite MALP 2230, Duarte, CA 91010-3000, United States. akaiser@coh.org
Received: March 30, 2020
Peer-review started: March 30, 2020
First decision: April 29, 2020
Revised: May 20, 2020
Accepted: July 30, 2020
Article in press: July 30, 2020
Published online: August 14, 2020
Peer-review started: March 30, 2020
First decision: April 29, 2020
Revised: May 20, 2020
Accepted: July 30, 2020
Article in press: July 30, 2020
Published online: August 14, 2020
Core Tip
Core tip: Rectal cancer is one of the most complex diseases as it combines oncological, anatomical, and functional challenges with a variety of technical and multimodality treatment options. While open surgery was long considered the surgical gold standard, less invasive approaches have evolved. These newer technologies have attractive advantages, however their overall benefit and risk analysis in the short and long run and their specific role for rectal cancer remain controversial and a matter of further research.