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New prospects in the conservative treatment of rectal cancer

  • Published:
Diseases of the Colon & Rectum

Abstract

Conservative treatment of rectal cancer is applicable only to limited tumors that are assumed to have no lymphatic spread; these are well or moderately well differentiated adenocarcinomas confined to the bowel wall, without palpable pararectal metastatic lymph nodes. The experience of intracavitary irradiation (contact x-ray therapy often combined with iridium 192 implant), based on 245 patients followed for more than five years, shows a low rate of local failure (5.3 per cent). The rate of death from cancer is 8.9 per cent and the five-year survival rate is 76 per cent. In patients under 60 years, a perirectal lymphadenectomy should be considered a safety measure. A new approach, based on a combination of external beam irradiation (3000 rads in 12 days), followed by iridium 192 implant two months later, allows the field of conservative treatment in poor-risk surgical patients to be extended without jeopardizing their chance of cure.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Radiotherapy Department at the Centre L'eon B'erard, Univesity of Lyon, 28, rue Laënnec, 69008, Lyon, France

    Jean Papillon M.D.

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  1. Jean Papillon M.D.
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Additional information

Read at the joint meeting of the American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons, the Section of Colo-Proctology of the Royal Society of Medicine, and the Section of Colonic and Rectal Surgery of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, New Orleans, Louisiana, May 6–10, 1984.

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Papillon, J. New prospects in the conservative treatment of rectal cancer. Dis Colon Rectum 27, 695–700 (1984). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02554589

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02554589

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