Authors' reply: Management of early rectal cancer (Br J Surg 2008; 95: 409–423)

✍ Scribed by M.G. Tytherleigh; N.J.McC. Mortensen

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2008
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 49 KB
• Volume: 95
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0007-1323
• DOI: 10.1002/bjs.6373

✦ Synopsis

we have a zero mortality, pelvic sepsis and stoma formation rate. Full mucosectomy offers definitive treatment for all benign lesions, may offer a complete local R0 resection for tiny foci of pT1 sm1 carcinoma and, if the pathology of the specimen is adverse (sm2 or deeper), allows completion radical surgery to be undertaken in a rectum where the wall has not been disrupted, with no consequent oncological compromise. It also allows the majority of our cases to be performed as day or 23-hour stay.

The small but additional risk posed by full thickness excision is not justified in these circumstances, even if it is technically easier than an often more challenging mucosectomy.