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World J Gastrointest Surg. Jul 27, 2021; 13(7): 655-667
Published online Jul 27, 2021. doi: 10.4240/wjgs.v13.i7.655
Management of early rectal cancer; current surgical options and future direction
Vijay Chavda, Oliver Siaw, Sanjay Chaudhri, Franscois Runau
Vijay Chavda, Oliver Siaw, Sanjay Chaudhri, Franscois Runau, Department of General Surgery, Leicester General Hospital, Leicester LE5 4PW, United Kingdom
Author contributions: Chavda V contributed to the conception, literature review, drafting of manuscript and finalization of manuscript; all remaining authors contributed equally to the conception, drafting and final review of the manuscript; all authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: No conflict-of-interest concerns were expressed by any of the contributing authors.
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: Franscois Runau, FRCS (Gen Surg), PhD, Surgeon, Department of General Surgery, Leicester General Hospital, Gwendolen Road, Leicester LE5 4PW, United Kingdom. franscois_gerald@yahoo.com
Received: February 7, 2021
Peer-review started: February 7, 2021
First decision: April 6, 2021
Revised: April 13, 2021
Accepted: June 16, 2021
Article in press: June 16, 2021
Published online: July 27, 2021
Core Tip

Core Tip: Surgical options for local excision can offer the potential for cure in a carefully selected cohort of patients with early rectal cancer, avoiding the risks of major resectional surgery. Numerous risk factors have been defined which influence the likelihood of success with local excision in early-stage disease. The combined use of oncological therapies, in the form of radiotherapy and chemotherapy, for high-risk early-stage disease may offer a wider role for local excision, which at present is limited by the risk of local recurrence.