Evaluating the incidence of pathological complete response in current international rectal cancer practice: the barriers to widespread safe deferral of surgery

Abstract

The mainstay of management for locally advanced rectal cancer is chemoradiotherapy followed by surgical resection. Following chemoradiotherapy, a complete response may be detected clinically and radio-logically (cCR) prior to surgery or pathologically after surgery (pCR). We aim to report the overall complete pathological response (pCR) rate and the reliability of detecting a cCR by conventional pre-operative imaging.