The 2017 Assisi Think Tank Meeting on rectal cancer: A positioning paper

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSES: To describe current practice in the management of rectal cancer, to identify uncertainties that usually arise in the multidisciplinary team (MDT)'s discussions ('grey zones') and propose next generation studies which may provide answers to them. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A questionnaire on the areas of controversy in managing T2, T3 and T4 rectal cancer was drawn up and distributed to the Rectal-Assisi Think Tank Meeting (ATTM) Expert European Board. Less than 70% agreement on a treatment option was indicated as uncertainty and selected as a 'grey zone'. Topics with large disagreement were selected by the task force group for discussion at the Rectal-ATTM. RESULTS: The…

Corrigendum to "2nd St. Gallen EORTC Gastrointestinal Cancer Conference: Consensus recommendations on controversial issues in the primary treatment of rectal cancer" [Eur J Cancer 63 (August 2016) 11-24].

Second St. Gallen European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer Gastrointestinal Cancer Conference: consensus recommendations on controversial issues in the primary treatment of rectal cancer

Contains fulltext : 171468pub.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access) Primary treatment of rectal cancer was the focus of the second St. Gallen European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) Gastrointestinal Cancer Conference. In the context of the conference, a multidisciplinary international expert panel discussed and voted on controversial issues which could not be easily answered using published evidence. Main topics included optimal pretherapeutic imaging, indication and type of neoadjuvant treatment, and the treatment strategies in advanced tumours. Here we report the key recommendations and summarise the related evidence. The treatment strategy for localised rect…

Nomograms for predicting local recurrence, distant metastases, and overall survival for patients with locally advanced rectal cancer on the basis of European randomized clinical trials.

Purpose The purpose of this study was to develop accurate models and nomograms to predict local recurrence, distant metastases, and survival for patients with locally advanced rectal cancer treated with long-course chemoradiotherapy (CRT) followed by surgery and to allow for a selection of patients who may benefit most from postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy and close follow-up. Patients and Methods All data (N = 2,795) from five major European clinical trials for rectal cancer were pooled and used to perform an extensive survival analysis and to develop multivariate nomograms based on Cox regression. Data from one trial was used as an external validation set. The variables used in the ana…