Salvage Chemotherapy Versus Total Mesorectal Resection for Local Resection Rectal Cancer Patients

Whether to perform radical TME or salvage chemoradiotherapy after local resection of intermediate-risk T1 rectal cancer is still controversial. A study based on the National Cancer Data Center showed that, because of the need for organ preservation, rescue chemoradiotherapy after local resection of rectal cancer was used in 10% of patients with T1N0 tumors and in 40% of patients with T2N0 tumors. However, the local recurrence caused by non-TME surgery is still the focus of concern for clinicians and patients. Previous retrospective studies have shown that there is no significant difference in overall survival and disease free survival between salvage CRT group and salvage TME group for patients with early rectal cancer after local resection. Pathological pT2 after local resection is the only independent risk factor for disease-free survival. However, limited to a single center and small sample size, the recurrence caused by salvage radiotherapy and chemotherapy should still be alert. Given these concerns, there is an urgent need to identify a better treatment regimen that can ensure reliable oncologic outcomes after local resection. Therefore, with TME as the control group and salvage chemoradiotherapy as the experimental group, we conducted a prospective, randomized, multicenter, non-inferiority clinical trial of the treatment effect of patients with intermediate-risk T1 and clinical stage N0M0 rectal cancer after local resection, to provide high-level evidence-based medical evidence for the final choice of these two salvage treatment methods.