Innovation or disparity? National trends in nonoperative management of rectal adenocarcinoma.

688 Background: While surgical resection has always been the cornerstone of curative treatment for rectal cancer, preoperative chemoradiation for stage II/III rectal cancer results in up to 49% of patients with a clinical complete response. As a result, many have questioned whether surgery can be omitted for this group of patients. Currently, there is insufficient evidence on the safety and efficacy of chemoradiation-only, or non-operative management (NOM), to support the wholesale adoption of this treatment paradigm. Despite this, anecdotal evidence suggests there is a trend for increased use of NOM. Our objective was to examine trends in the use of NOM for rectal cancer over time as well as patient- and facility-level factors associated with its use. Methods: We included all incident cases of invasive, non-metastatic, rectal adenocarcinoma reported to the National Cancer Data Base (NCDB) from 1998–2010. We performed univariate and multivariate analyses to assess NOM use over time as well as patient- and...