Rectal cancer patients could safely avoid surgery with watch-and-wait

A recent large scale study based at the Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine (CA, USA) has shown that surgery could be safely avoided in carefully selected Stage I and II rectal cancer patients, instead favoring the watch-and-wait strategy. The standard treatment for rectal cancer patients involves trimodal therapy: simultaneous chemotherapy and radiation therapy, followed by neoadjuvant chemoradiation and surgical resection. Watch-and-wait initially skips the operation and favors regular monitoring of patients for recurrence instead. "Rectal cancer surgery is very good for a cure, but it does have certain potential side effects: the ability to control bowel movements, bladder accidents, sexual...