Preoperative staging and treatment options in T1 rectal adenocarcinoma

Major rectal resection for T1 rectal cancer offers more than 95% cancer specific five-year survival to patients surviving the first 30 days after surgery. A significant further improvement by development of the surgical technique may not be possible. Improvements in the total survival rate have to come from a more differentiated treatment modality, taking patient and procedure related risk factors into account. Subgroups of patients have operative mortality risks of 10% or more. Operative complications and long-term side effects after rectum resection are frequent and often severe.

Local treatment of T1 cancers combined with close follow-up, early salvage surgery or later radical resection of local recurrences or with chemo-radiation may lead to fewer severe complications and comparable, or even better, long-term survival. Accurate preoperative staging and careful selection of patients for local or non-operative treatment are mandatory. As preoperative staging, at present, is not sufficiently accurate, strategies for completion, salvage or rescue surgery is important, and must be accepted by the patient before local treatment for cure is initiated.

It is recommended that polyps with low-risk T1 cancers should be treated with endoscopic snare resection in case of Haggitt's stage 1 or 2. TEM is recommended if resection margins are uncertain after snare resection for Haggitt's stage 3 and 4, and for sessile and flat, low-risk T1 cancers. Average risk patients with high-risk T1 cancers should be offered rectum resection, but old and comorbid patients with high-risk T1 cancers should be treated individually according to objective criteria as age, physical performance as well as patient's preference. All patients treated for cure with local resection or non-surgical methods should be followed closely.