Post-surgical staging following neoadjuvant therapy
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Clinical practice guidelines for the prevention, early detection and management of colorectal cancer > Post-surgical staging following neoadjuvant therapy
Post-surgical staging following neoadjuvant therapy[edit source]
A subset of patients with primary rectal cancer may be treated with neoadjuvant radiotherapy or chemoradiotherapy prior to surgical resection of the tumour. The stage given in this situation is an indication of the extent of tumour actually present at the time of examination of the surgical specimen, and is not an estimate of tumour prior to neoadjuvant therapy. Tumour spread is defined by the extent of direct spread of tumour cells. The presence of fibrosis, necrosis or acellular mucin pools should be reported but is not counted in the assessment of extent of tumour spread for staging purposes. The ‘yp’ prefix is used to denote postsurgical TNM stage following neoadjuvant therapy.