SynthesisInternational journal of colorectal disease2019
Preoperative short-course radiotherapy (5 × 5 Gy) with delayed surgery versus preoperative long-course radiotherapy for locally resectable rectal cancer: a meta-analysis.
Synthesis in International journal of colorectal disease, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Neoadjuvant short-course radiotherapy with consolidation chemotherapy for locally advanced rectal cancer: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Acta oncologica (Stockholm, Sweden) · 2021Pooled it
- Preoperative chemoradiotherapy in older patients with rectal cancer guided by comprehensive geriatric assessment within a multidisciplinary team-a multicenter phase II trial.BMC geriatrics · 2024Trial
- Watch and wait in locally advanced rectal cancer: Evolution, current evidence, and future directions.World journal of gastrointestinal surgery · 2025Review
- Preoperative Radiotherapy in Elderly Patients With Locally Advanced Rectal Cancer: A Retrospective Cohort Study.Cureus · 2025Article
- Geriatric Approaches to Rectal Cancer: Moving Towards a Patient-Tailored Treatment Era.Journal of clinical medicine · 2025Review
- New Opportunities for Minimizing Toxicity in Rectal Cancer Management.American Society of Clinical Oncology educational book. American Society of Clinical Oncology. Annual Meeting · 2023Article
- Review
- Clinical evaluation on automatic segmentation results of convolutional neural networks in rectal cancer radiotherapy.Frontiers in oncology · 2023Article
- Assessment of Radiation-Induced Bladder and Bowel Cancer Risks after Conventionally and Hypo-Fractionated Radiotherapy for the Preoperative Management of Rectal Carcinoma.Journal of personalized medicine · 2022Article
- Multidisciplinary management of elderly patients with rectal cancer: recommendations from the SICG (Italian Society of Geriatric Surgery), SIFIPAC (Italian Society of Surgical Pathophysiology), SICE (Italian Society of Endoscopic Surgery and new technologies), and the WSES (World Society of Emergency Surgery) International Consensus Project.World journal of emergency surgery : WJES · 2021Article
- Preoperative Short-Course Radiotherapy and Surgery versus Surgery Alone for Patients with Rectal Cancer: A Propensity Score-Matched Analysis at 18-Year Follow-Up.Biomedicines · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
11 authors.
Funding
Abstract
purposePreoperative short-course radiotherapy (PSRT) and preoperative long-course radiotherapy (PLRT) are standard treatment regimens for locally advanced rectal cancer. However, whether the efficacy and safety of PSRT with delayed surgery (more than 4 weeks) are superior to those of PLRT remains unresolved and was explored in this meta-analysis.
methodsStudies published in PubMed, Embase, the Cochrane Library, and ClinicalTrials.gov databases were systematically searched. RevMan 5.3 was used to calculate pooled hazard ratios (HR) and relative risk (RR).
resultsSeven studies including 4973 patients were identified in the meta-analysis. Pooled statistics showed that there was no statistically significant difference in overall survival (HR = 1.30, 95% CI 0.58-2.89, P = 0.52) or disease-free survival (HR = 1.10, 95% CI 0.73-1.66, P = 0.64) between the preoperative short-course and long-course radiotherapy groups. Moreover, pathological complete remission, early postoperative complications, treatment-related grade 3/4 toxicity, local recurrence, and distant metastasis were similar between the two groups. Interestingly, a subgroup analysis revealed that preoperative short-course radiotherapy without adjuvant chemotherapy not only resulted in lower treatment-related grade 3/4 toxicity than the long-course radiotherapy group (RR = 0.19, 95% CI 0.08-0.48, P < 0.01) but also resulted in significantly lower overall survival and pathological complete remission (P = 0.02, P < 0.01, respectively). Disappointingly, pooled statistics observed few advantages over long-course radiotherapy in short-course radiotherapy with the adjuvant chemotherapy subgroup.
conclusionsPSRT with delayed surgery was as effective as PLRT for the management of locally resectable rectal cancer. However, not adding additional chemotherapy to PSRT not only significantly decreased grade 3/4 toxicity but also decreased pathological complete remission and overall survival.
trial registrationThe protocol for this meta-analysis was prospectively registered with PROSPERO (CRD42019133641).
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.