Habr-Gama A et al. - Delay in surgery for the evaluation of tumor response after neoadjuvant chemoradiation therapy (CRT) is safe and does not negatively affect survival. These results support the hypothesis that shorter intervals may interrupt ongoing tumor necrosis. Methods
Study to evaluate whether the interval between neoadjuvant CRT and surgery in the treatment of pts with distal rectal cancer has an impact on survival
Pts who underwent surgery after CRT were retrospectively reviewed
Pts with a sustained complete clinical response (cCR) 1 yr after CRT were excluded
Clinical and pathologic characteristics and OS and DFS were compared between different groups:
(i) Pts undergoing surgery ≤12 wks from CRT vs pts undergoing surgery >12 wks from CRT completion
(ii) Pts with a surgery delay caused by a suspected cCR vs those with a delay for other reasons
Results
250 pts underwent surgery, and 48.4% had CRT-to-surgery intervals of ≤12 wks
No differences in OS or DFS between pts according to interval
Pts with intervals of ≤12 wks had higher rates of stage III disease
The delay in surgery was caused by a suspected cCR in 23 pts
5-yr OS and DFS rates for this subset were 84.9% and 51.6% not significantly different vs the remaining group
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