Current principles and approaches to the treatment for patients with locally advanced rectal cancer

: The short-term treatment results of 91 patients with locally advanced rectal cancer are presented. All patients received surgical treatment and neoadjuvant chemotherapy. The chemoradiotherapy effect was evaluated by comparison of pre- and post-therapeutic MRI data. MRI data was also compared with post-operation tumor morphology data. In 23% of resected tumor samples complete tumor regression was evident, in 47.2% of cases partial regression was revealed. Lymph node metastases were found in 21.9% of cases. The discrepancy in MRI and morphology data can be explained by the limited ability of MRI in differentiation between viable tumor, fibronecrotic tissue and inflammatory reaction after chemoradiotherapy.