[Evidence-based surgery of rectal carcinoma]

The surgery of rectal cancer has seen significant development in recent years. When there is a multitude of therapeutic options available, it is essential to identify what can be considered a proven standard or, at least, what has to be included in planning a surgical treatment. Therefore, at this point of time a distal resection margin of 2 cm, total mesorectal excision, en-bloc resection of adherent structures, colonic pouch reconstruction after very deep resections and limitation of local excision to T1/G1 tumors have to be regarded as standards of the surgical strategy.