[Present status and future of multi-disciplinary treatment for colorectal cancer]

Multi-disciplinary treatment (MDT) is an effective pattern to implement the standardized and individualized treatment for cancer. Under the pattern of MDT which integrates the surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, interventional therapy, targeted therapy and immune therapy, there has been a landmark progress in the diagnosis and treatment of colorectal cancer. Curative resection followed by adjuvant chemotherapy has been established as a standard treatment for stage III( colon cancer, but it is still controversial about whether patients with stage II( colon cancer should receive adjuvant chemotherapy and which regimen is preferred. Decision making regarding the use of adjuvant therapy for stage II( patients should not only depend upon the clinicopathological features but also individualized discussion between patients and physicians about the biological behavior of the disease, evidence supporting the efficacy, and possible toxicity. Radical operation following neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy is currently the standard modality for locally advanced rectal cancer, but the strategy of 'Wait and See' is proposed by some researchers for those achieving complete response after chemoradiotherapy, although there is no sufficient supportive data yet. Patients with metastatic colorectal cancer should undergo an upfront evaluation and discussion by a multidisciplinary team before the initial treatment. Achieving a negative surgical margin with adequate remanent liver reserve is the criteria for determining the resectability of liver metastasis. Both adjuvant and neoadjuvant chemotherapy are two alternatives for initially resectable liver metastasis. Concomitant with the progress of medicine, the MDT is moving toward a precise treatment system oriented by genes and being able to predict the prognosis, efficacy and side effects exactly.