[Local treatment of "small cancers" of the rectum: excision is preferable to electrocoagulation]

From 1973 to 1990, 50 patients with a "small cancer" of the rectum were treated locally either by electrocoagulation or by local excision using an electrical scalpel. 20 patients were treated by electrocoagulation. Their 5-year actuarial survival was 78.3% and the local recurrence rate was 16.5%. 4 treated patients by local excision had a lesion which invaded the serosa and should have been amputated as primary procedure. Three of them relapsed. 26 patients were treated by local excision for a lesion confined to the rectal wall. Their 5-year actuarial survival was 94.4% and the local recurrence rate was 4.5%. The difference in survival and recurrence was significant between electrocoagulation and excision of a lesion confined to the rectal wall. These results suggest that excision is preferable to electrocoagulation as it allows prediction of the result by pathological examination of the operative specimen.