Delaying surgery after neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy improves prognosis of rectal cancer

Figure 1 Distributions of groups with regard to interval time between neoadjuvant therapy and surgery. Median interval periods ± SD were 5 ± 1.28 (2-7.8) wk in group I and 10.1 ± 2.2 (8.2-20.2) wk in group II (P < 0.001).

Figure 2 Comparison of overall survival and disease-free survival between the groups by Kaplan–Meier curves. The median DFS duration in group II was better than in group I (P = 0.01). DFS: Disease-free survival; OS: Overall survival.

Figure 3 Effect of presence of tumor in lymph nodes and its correlation with overall survival (A) and disease-free survival (B). Survival rates were better in patients who achieved nodal down-staging (P = 0.001). OS: Overall survival; DFS: Disease-free survival.

Figure 4 Correlation between level of the pathological tumor responses and disease-free survival. Only a poor pathologic response (TRG 4) was associated with worse DFS (P = 0.009). TRG: Tumor regression grade; DFS: Disease-free survival.

Figure 5 Local recurrences were similar in both interval groups. The interval duration did not show any association with local recurrence (P = 0.79).