Minimal invasive surgery in the local treatment of rectal cancer

At the Surgical Department of the University of Cologne, a system has been developed for transanal endoscopic surgery, which allows all the conventional surgical techniques within the rectal cavity. The clinical and long-term results regarding local excision of broad based adenomas and small (< 4 cm) carcinomas of the rectum were the subject of the study. The main indication was the removal of sessile adenomas. Early rectal carcinomas with favourable histological grading (Grade 1 and 2) and staging (Mason I and II) were also suitable for endorectal therapeutical approach. Infiltrative cancers can be removed endoscopically in one session, but the authors performed local excisions of these cancers only in cases where the patient was unwilling to undergo extensive surgery or due to medical reasons. Nevertheless several Dukes B carcinomas were removed locally. Most of the histological findings of the subsequent radical operations (rectum resection, rectum extirpation) revealed that the carcinoma had already been totally removed. During the period July 1983 to December 1992, the techniques have been employed on 313 patients in 348 cases. Early postoperative complications consisted of intraperitoneal perforations (five cases); rectovaginal fistulae (four cases); haemorrhages (four cases), death due to cardiopulmonary failure (two cases). All the complications occurred within the first three years of the learning phase. The recurrence rate of adenomas amounted to 5%. The technique allows accurate endoscopic microsurgical excision of giant adenomas and early cancers with minimal morbidity and excellent presentation of specimens for complete histological analysis. Open invasive surgery can thus be avoided.