Three main functions of preoperative radiotherapy for colorectal cancer

A 55-year-old female patient was diagnosed with colorectal cancer two months ago. Because the tumor is too large, surgery is not possible for the time being. She would like to know how to shrink the tumor so that the patient can undergo surgery?

Because the tumor is too large, the patient cannot receive radical surgery for the time being. Instead, he or she can receive radiotherapy for a period of time before surgery. Preoperative radiotherapy has been widely used for temporarily operable colorectal cancer and locally advanced colorectal cancer. Preoperative radiotherapy can reduce the occurrence of surgical implants, reduce the tumor stage, and reduce the size of the tumor.

There are three main roles of radiotherapy before bowel cancer surgery:

1. Reduce the size of the tumor and improve the surgical resection rate

Preoperative radiotherapy can cause tumor cells to undergo varying degrees of degeneration, fibrous tissue hyperplasia, the disappearance of infiltration around the tumor, and the reduction of tumor size, thereby increasing the surgical resection rate and reducing blood and lymph metastasis that may be caused during surgical operations.

2. Reduce metastatic lesions in lymph nodes

Through preoperative radiotherapy, the metastatic lesions in the lymph nodes are killed, and the walls of the blood vessels around the cancer are thickened and the lumen is reduced after radiotherapy, causing fibrosis or even occlusion, reducing the chance of metastasis.

3. Reduce local recurrence and distant metastasis

Preoperative radiotherapy can generally reduce the local recurrence rate by about 10%. Even if recurrence occurs, it will be significantly postponed in time, and the 5-year survival rate can be increased by 10%-15%. Many clinical studies have confirmed that preoperative radiotherapy can significantly reduce distant metastasis.