Evaluating the incidence of pathological complete response in current international rectal cancer practice. The barriers to widespread safe deferral of surgery
Introduction: The mainstay of management for locally advanced rectal cancer is chemoradiotherapy followed by surgical resection. Following chemoradiotherapy, a complete response may be detected clinically and radiologically (cCR) prior to surgery or pathologically after surgery (pCR). We aim to report the overall complete pathological response (pCR) rate and the reliability of detecting a cCR by conventional pre-operative imaging. Methods: A pre-planned analysis of the European Society of Coloproctology (ESCP) 2017 audit was performed.