Background: To determine the incidence of local recurrence, after curative resection for rectal cancer, with the application of total mesorectal excision (TME).
Patients and methods: During the last ten years, 120 patients underwent curative resection for rectal cancer. As a rule, except for the cases that underwent high anterior resection, TME was applied. In terms of local relapse, routine TME, preoperative radiotherapy, tumour's stage, differentiation grade and number of positive nodes were taken into account.
Results: Eight patients (6.7%) presented with local relapse. At 5 years, 91.9% of patients were free of local recurrence and the actuarial disease-free survival was 81%. A significant association between routine TME, tumour's stage, differentiation grade, lymph node invasion and local recurrence was observed. Conversely, preoperative radiotherapy appeared to play no protective role.
Conclusions: The curative resection of rectal cancer, with the application of TME, has led to a very low incidence of local relapse during the last few years.