NEOadjuvant Chemotherapy Only Compared With Standard Treatment for Locally Advanced Rectal Cancer

The main clinical hypothesis is that compared to radio-chemotherapy for low and mid rectal tumors or surgery for high rectal tumors neoadjuvant chemotherapy reduces the rate of distant relapse without increasing the rate of local relapse.
The aim of the present study is to compare long term and short term outcomes in rectal cancer patients undergoing standard treatment (radio-chemotherapy/surgery) or experimental neoadjuvant chemotherapy/surgery Furthermore, early surgical and medical complications, the functional outcome, toxicity and quality of life (QoL) may be improved if radiotherapy can be avoided.
Exploratory analyses are planned in order to find potential predictive markers for selecting patients to either radio-chemotherapy/surgery or neoadjuvant combination chemotherapy/surgery.