Study: Rectal Cancer Patients Do Well at Low-Volume Hospitals

Patients who have rectal cancer surgery at hospitals that perform few of these operations fare as well as those treated at high-volume hospitals as long as they complete standard follow-up therapy, according to a new study.

The researchers based that conclusion on a study of 1,330 patients with stage II and stage III rectal cancer who participated in a multicenter trial in which surgery was accompanied by chemotherapy or radiation therapy.

"Hospital surgical volume did not predict overall, disease-free, recurrence-free, or local recurrence-free survival," the researchers reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

However, they found that among the 270 patients who did not complete the planned adjuvant chemoradiotherapy, "those who underwent surgery at low-volume hospitals had a significant increase in cancer recurrence" and also tended to have a higher mortality rate.

The reseachers did find, however, one advantage to having survey at hospitals that performed a large number of these operations.

Other sources: Journal of Clinical Oncology