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. 2017 Aug;143(8):1461-1467.
doi: 10.1007/s00432-017-2383-9. Epub 2017 Apr 6.

Patterns of recurrence in patients achieving pathologic complete response after neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy for rectal cancer

Wen-Hua Fan #  1   2 , Jian Xiao #  3 , Xin An  1   4 , Wu Jiang  1   2 , Li-Ren Li  1   2 , Yuan-Hong Gao  1   5 , Gong Chen  1   2 , Ling-Heng Kong  1   2 , Jun-Zhong Lin  1   2 , Jian-Ping Wang  6 , Zhi-Zhong Pan  7   8 , Pei-Rong Ding  9   10
Affiliations

Patterns of recurrence in patients achieving pathologic complete response after neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy for rectal cancer

Wen-Hua Fan et al. J Cancer Res Clin Oncol. 2017 Aug.

Abstract

Purpose: The aim of this study was to characterize the patterns of recurrence in patients achieving pathologic complete response (pCR) after neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (CRT) for locally advanced rectal cancer.

Methods: Patients with locally advanced rectal cancer treated with neoadjuvant CRT and who achieved pCR from January 2004 to December 2012 were collected. The primary outcome measurement was the patterns of recurrence.

Results: Among 195 patients who achieved pCR, 18 developed recurrence. Furthermore, local recurrence occurred in 1.5% of patients (3/195), while distant metastases occurred in 7.7% of patients (15/195), which included 7 lung metastases, 1 liver metastasis, and 8 metastases in other locations.

Conclusions: Our study indicated that patients achieving pCR following neoadjuvant CRT have a favorable prognosis, with distant metastases predominating in all recurrences. Among patients with distant metastases, non-liver metastases were the predominant pattern.

Keywords: Chemoradiotherapy; Neoadjuvant therapy; Rectal cancer; Recurrence.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Lateral pelvic recurrence on computed tomography. a Pre-treatment image shows a 5-mm lymph node in the right obturator area (white arrow). b Patient underwent neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy and the metastatic lymph node was decreased to 2 mm (white arrow). c Follow-up image at 12 months after surgery shows lateral pelvic recurrence (white arrow).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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