Editorial
When watching and waiting is enough: managing locally advanced rectal cancer without surgery
Abstract
The recently published “Long-term outcomes of clinical complete responders after neoadjuvant treatment for rectal cancer in the International Watch & Wait Database (IWWD): an international multicentre registry study” by van der Valk et al. in Lancet Oncology poses an interesting question (1). Could rectal cancer patients with locally advanced disease treated with neoadjuvant therapy sans resection patients be spared from a major operation, or possibly postponed indefinitely?
