[Two cases of advanced rectal cancer resected successfully after neoadjuvant chemotherapy with FOLFOX regimen]

We describe here two cases of locally advanced rectal cancer treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy prior to surgery. The first patient was a 54-year-old man whose chief complaint was bloody stool. A detailed examination revealed a rectal cancer with direct invasion of the primary rectal carcinoma into the prostate. Four courses of FOLFOX4 were administered as neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Because the invasion to the prostate was difficult to determine by subsequent CT evaluation, we performed a radical resection. The pathological examination revealed that all surgical margins were negative for malignancy and no metastasis to lymph nodes was found, therefore a surgical evaluation of curability was classified as A. The second patient was a 49-year-old woman whose chief complaint was irregular menstruation. A detailed examination revealed a rectal cancer with metastasis to an ovary and paraaortic lymph node. One course of FOLFOX4 and six courses of mFOLFOX6 (combined with bevacizumab in the first five courses) were administered as neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Subsequent examinations revealed significantly reduced primary tumor and the size of metastatic lesion. Given that metastasis to the paraaortic lymph node was difficult to determine, we performed a radical resection. The pathological examination revealed that all surgical margins were negative for malignancy, and the postoperative FDG-PET evaluation did not find FDG accumulation to paraaortic lymph node. We determined that there was no residual cancer and evaluated the surgery as curability B. We conclude that neoadjuvant chemotherapy against locally advanced rectal cancer may improve the curability of the surgery and save the surrounding organs.