The management of recurrent rectal carcinoma

Rectal carcinoma remains an enigma to surgical and medical oncologists. The chemo- and radiotherapeutic approaches have been fraught with failure, and when this happens the patient is left to the challenge of the surgical oncologist who sometimes must perform extensive re-resection to include adjacent structures. Experienced surgical judgement is assisted by preoperative and intraoperative criteria, which are contraindications to resection: preoperatively, they include metastases, fixation of tumour to pelvic wall, sciatica, obstruction of both ureters and leg edema. Intraoperatively, metastases within aortic nodes or beyond the pelvis and extension of disease laterally or deep to pelvic wall or to multiple loops of bowel are all contraindications. These tumours are often slow to metastasize so that aggressive local surgical resection is warranted to minimize the morbidity prone complications associated with low-lying perineal or pelvic recurrence of rectal cancer.