Copyright
©The Author(s) 2025. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Oncol. Nov 15, 2025; 17(11): 111250
Published online Nov 15, 2025. doi: 10.4251/wjgo.v17.i11.111250
Published online Nov 15, 2025. doi: 10.4251/wjgo.v17.i11.111250
Comparing early surgical outcomes between total neoadjuvant therapy and standard long course chemoradiotherapy for rectal cancer
Salman Ahmed Abdul Jabbar, Amadora Li En Choo, Neng-Wei Wong, James Chi-Yong Ngu, Nan-Zun Teo, Department of General Surgery, Changi General Hospital, Singapore 529889, Singapore
Author contributions: Jabbar SAA prepared and wrote the manuscript; Jabbar SAA, Choo ALE, Wong NW, Ngu JCY, and Teo NZ edited the manuscript; Jabbar SAA, Wong NW, Ngu JCY, and Teo NZ contributed to design and critical revision; Jabbar SAA and Teo NZ were involved in conceptualization; Choo ALE contributed to data collection; Teo NZ contributed to statistical analysis. All authors have read and agreed to the final version of the manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board of Changi General Hospital (Approval No. 2023/2390).
Informed consent statement: Informed consent was obtained from all patients participating in the study.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement-checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement-checklist of items.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Nan-Zun Teo, Assistant Professor, Consultant, FRCS (Ed), Department of General Surgery, Changi General Hospital, 2 Simei Street 3, Singapore 529889, Singapore. teo.nan.zun@singhealth.com.sg
Received: June 27, 2025
Revised: July 12, 2025
Accepted: October 9, 2025
Published online: November 15, 2025
Processing time: 140 Days and 19.1 Hours
Revised: July 12, 2025
Accepted: October 9, 2025
Published online: November 15, 2025
Processing time: 140 Days and 19.1 Hours
Core Tip
Core Tip: Rectal cancer and preoperative induction therapy followed by dedicated operation has emerged as a total neoadjuvant therapy strategy with improved oncological and functional outcomes. The impact of total neoadjuvant therapy on operative difficulty and short-term surgical outcomes, compared with long-course chemoradiotherapy, remains an area of ongoing debate. This cohort study of 99 patients demonstrated that the Rectal Cancer and Preoperative Induction Therapy Followed by Dedicated Operation (RAPIDO) protocol does not increase surgical difficulty or compromise early surgical outcomes compared with long-course chemoradiotherapy. It may also confer a shorter total stoma duration and a lower permanent stoma rate.