Background: Neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (NACRT) has now become the standard treatment for locally advanced rectal cancer (LARC). NACRT has decreased local relapse (LR) rate in patients with LARC; however, distant relapse has recently attracted much attention. This study aimed to assess the feasibility and efficiency of neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) for LARC.
Methods: Data on patients with cT3/4 and N+ rectal cancer who were treated in our institution from April 2010 to February 2016 were reviewed retrospectively. Twenty-seven patients who received 2-9 cycles of oxaliplatin-based NAC and 28 patients who received NACRT (45 Gy delivered in 25 fractions and 5-fluorouracil-based oral chemotherapy) were analyzed. The primary and secondary endpoints of the present study were the 3-year relapse-free survival (RFS) and the local and distant relapse rates, respectively.
Results: Regardless of the kind of neoadjuvant therapy, no patient experienced any grade 3-4 therapy-related adverse events. The frequent toxic events were grade 1 diarrhea in patients with NACRT and neutropenia in patients with NAC. A significantly higher proportion of patients with NAC underwent laparoscopic surgery and anterior resection (p = 0.037 and p = 0.003, respectively). The percentages of patients with lymph node yield less than 12 in the NAC group, and those in the NACRT group were 26 and 68%, respectively (p = 0.002). Comparing the NAC with the NACRT groups, the local relapse and distant relapse rates were 7.4 and 7.1% and 7.4 and 18%, respectively. There were no significant differences in 3-year RFS and 4-year overall survival (OS) between NAC and NACRT (3-year RFS 85.2 vs. 70.4%, p = 0.279; 4-year OS 96.3 vs. 89.1%, p = 0.145, respectively). With an analysis excluding patients who received postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy, no patients who received NAC had a distant relapse, and there was a significant difference in 3-year RFS compared with the NACRT groups (94.4 vs. 63.2%, p = 0.043).
Conclusion: These outcomes suggest that the therapeutic effect of oxaliplatin-based NAC is at least equal to that of NACRT and that NAC is a feasible and promising option for LARC.
Keywords: Locally advanced rectal cancer; Neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy; Oxaliplatin-based neoadjuvant chemotherapy; Relapse-free survival.