Chemoradiotherapy and surgical resection are important elements of multimodality treatment for patients with locally advanced rectal cancer. The optimum sequence of these modalities has been addressed in several randomized trials and preoperative chemoradiotherapy has been shown to be superior to postoperative treatment for a variety of end points.
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The author is on the Speakers bureau of Merck, Roche and Sanofi-Aventis and receives grant/research support from Merck.
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Rödel, C. Preoperative chemoradiotherapy for rectal cancer. Nat Rev Clin Oncol 7, 129–130 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrclinonc.2010.10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrclinonc.2010.10