Rectal cancer - current treatment strategy and the tumor regression grade evaluation after neoadjuvant therapy in patients who underwent surgery at the I. Department of Surgery, General University Hospital in Prague between 2012 and 2016.

The article contains a summary of the issues of staging and therapy with an emphasis on the neoadjuvant treatment and associated tumor regression grade with the analysis of our own group of patients. Retrospective analysis of patients with rectal cancer who underwent a surgery at the 1st Department of Surgery - Thoratic, Abdominal and Injury Surgery; First Faculty of Medicine, Charles University in Prague and General University Hospital in Prague, Czech Republic, focusing on those who underwent neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy and their pathologists evaluated tumor regression grade after the resection. The group consists of 161 patients operated on between 2012 and 2016. 47 patients underwent neoadjuvant oncological treatment with further evaluation of the tumor regression grade by a pathologist, a scoring system according to Ryan was used. A complete pathological response was elicited in 10.4% of patients, no response in 35.4% of patients, and partial tumor regression in 54.2%. Although there is a difference in our results compared to foreign publications, the proportion of patients remains comparable. Studies evaluating the advantages versus disadvantages of neoadjuvant therapy will certainly follow, and the question of the suitability of surgical treatment as the only curative solution is partially raised.