[Minimally invasive treatment of colorectal cancer]

It may be widely interpreted that minimally invasive treatment of colorectal cancer includes endoscopic mucosal resection, transanal endoscopic microsurgery (TEM), laparoscopic surgery and open reduction-surgery as well as adjuvant treatments such as chemotherapy, radiotherapy and thermotherapy. With the development of medical technology and instruments, we have now a wide and new range of choices for each cancer stage of patients. However, it is not yet clear that minimally invasive treatment necessarily leads to better results in survival and recurrent rates of the patients, as compared with conventional surgery. We should therefore take into full consideration the lingering problems in selecting the new therapies. In this paper, we show the strong and weak points of laparoscopic surgery, TEM, right hemi-colectomy preserving Bauhin's valve and adjuvant radiotherapy for lower rectal cancer, and discuss ongoing problems.