Local recurrence after radical surgery for colorectal cancer

Local recurrence of colorectal cancer after curative surgery is a major clinical problem. The aim of our study was to present our experience in this field. Between January 1990 and December 2000, 572 patients underwent resection for colorectal cancer in our department; 66 of them had local recurrence within the first 2 years. Most of those patients had Dukes' stage B (n = 24) or stage C (n = 37) tumors, which were located mainly in the rectum (n = 40) and sigmoid colon (n = 18). The incidence of local recurrence was 11% and 15.9% for tumors that were Dukes' stages B and C, respectively. Thirty-five of 66 patients received palliative treatment, and 28 of them died within 9 months. The remaining 31 patients underwent radical excision of the recurrent tumor: 11 of these patients died within 2 years, and 20 were still alive after 30 months. The only hope for long-term survival for patients presenting with local recurrence from colorectal cancer after primary radical treatment is to identify local recurrence at an early stage and treat it in a radical manner.