Pretreatment identification of patients likely to have pathologic complete response after neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy for rectal cancer

Purpose In selected patients, a wait-and-see strategy after chemoradiotherapy for rectal cancer might be feasible provided that the probability of pathologic complete response (pCR) is high. This study aimed to identify clinical parameters associated with pCR. Furthermore, we attempted to identify subgroups with increased probability of pCR that might aid in clinical decision making.