Our experiences of preoperative chemo-radiotherapy for T4 primary rectal cancer

We reviewed 7 cases of clinical record with preoperative chemo-radiotherapy to evaluate the clinical effectiveness of the chemo-radiotherapy for T4 rectal cancer. The preoperative radiation therapy consisted of 40-45 Gy delivered in fractions of 1.8-2.0 Gy per day, five days a week. A treatment of 5-fluorouracil, 500 mg/body per day intravenously, or oral UFT-E (300 mg/m2) with l-leucovorin (75 mg) per day, or oral S-1 (80 mg/m2) per day five days a week, was given during radiotherapy. Grade 1 or 2 adverse effects occurred in 3 patients during chemo-radiotherapy, but the completion of chemo-radiotherapy was achieved in all of the 7 patients. Tumor invasion identified by CT and MRI to other organs in the pelvis disappeared in four cases with complete or partial response after a month of chemo-radiotherapy. Although the other organs were also removed during surgery in 4 patients, curative surgery was performed in 5 patients. There was no histological invasion seen to other organs in 4 patients, and one patient had histological complete disappearance of tumor. Although complications after surgery were found in all of the patients, they were improved by conservative treatment. One of 4 patients with curative surgery had liver and local recurrence, but others survived without recurrence. Preoperative chemo-radiotherapy was expected to be a safe and effective treatment to improve the resection rate and prognosis for T4 rectal cancer.