Surgical trainees' understanding of Dukes' staging in rectal cancer

This study was conducted to determine the understanding of Dukes' Staging of Rectal Cancer by surgical trainees.

At a West African College of Surgeons' revision course, questionnaires were distributed asking questions related to staging of Rectal Carcinoma with special emphasis on Dukes' staging, the results were analyzed using SPSS Version 10.0.

We had sixty-one (61) respondents, one (1) questionnaire was incompletely filled and sixty were therefore analyzed. They were all males. Majority of respondents 53 (88.3%) were between 30 and 39 years of age. Fifty (83.3%) were junior residents, while 10 (16.7%) were senior residents. Exactly 71.1% of the residents have had more than 6 months of general surgery posting. Forty-nine (81.7%) had staged rectal cancer in practice. Fifty-four (90%) knew no other staging system apart from Dukes'. Only 11 (18.3%) were able to outline Dukes' staging correctly. Fourteen (23%), 12 (20%), and 25 (41%) were able to correctly get Stage A, B and C of Dukes' Classification.

Adequate comparison of outcome of treatments will be difficult if there is confusion in staging. The 1932 Dukes' Staging should be uniformly adopted for its simplicity Alternatively, proformas of the TNM Staging can be introduced in clinical practice to decrease the reliance on memory.