Trial reportESMO open2025
Chemotherapy before or after preoperative chemoradiotherapy and surgery for locally advanced rectal cancer: 5-year results of the CAO/ARO/AIO-12 trial - a general pairwise comparison.
Trial report in ESMO open, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
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
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Low-intensity induction chemotherapy before chemoradiotherapy for rectal cancer: 10-year overall survival in the LARC-RRP trial.The British journal of radiology · 2026Article
- A Consensus Approach to the Incorporation of Total Neoadjuvant Therapy in a Treatment Algorithm for Stage I-III Resectable Rectal Cancer.Current oncology (Toronto, Ont.) · 2026Review
- Total Neoadjuvant Therapy for Rectal Cancer: Why Japan Says "Not Yet".Annals of gastroenterological surgery · 2026Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundTotal neoadjuvant treatment (TNT) has been increasingly adopted for multimodal rectal cancer treatment. Here, we present the 5-year results of our CAO/ARO/AIO-12 randomized phase II trial that compared two TNT sequences. PATIENTS AND
methodsPatients were initially randomized 1 : 1 to arm A (induction chemotherapy followed by chemoradiotherapy) or arm B (chemoradiotherapy followed by consolidation chemotherapy) followed by total mesorectal excision surgery. This report on the 5-year results involved a general pairwise comparison (GPC) of the following parameters, ranked as indicated: overall survival, incidence of locoregional recurrence, incidence of distant metastasis, rate of pathological/clinical complete remission, long-term quality of life (at least 24 months after randomization) based on global health assessed by the European Organisation For Research And Treatment Of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire Core 30 questionnaire, and incidence of toxicity, ranked by grade, during follow-up.
resultsA total of 306 patients were eligible for this analysis. After a median follow-up of 60 months (interquartile range 58-62 months), we found that long-term oncological outcome was comparable in both arms [e.g. 5-year overall survival 85.8% (95% confidence interval 80.2% to 91.8%) in arm A and 84.2% (95% confidence interval 78.2% to 90.5%) in arm B], regardless of whether patients received induction chemotherapy and chemoradiotherapy or chemoradiotherapy and consolidation chemotherapy. The GPC showed no clinically meaningful overall treatment benefit (-1.38%) or win ratio difference (0.97) between the two treatment sequences. The incidence of pathological or sustained clinical complete remission remained higher in patients treated with consolidation chemotherapy after adjusting for long-term outcome between both arms (11% versus 6.5%).
conclusionsOur 5-year GPC confirmed the 3-year findings that chemoradiotherapy followed by consolidation chemotherapy resulted in higher rates of pathological complete remission without compromising oncological outcome, toxicity, or quality of life. The TNT sequence chemoradiotherapy/chemotherapy may be preferred for organ preservation strategies.
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