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Getting the latest healthcare news for you
Getting the latest healthcare news for you
For patients with early-stage rectal cancer, long-course chemoradiotherapy (CRT) is proving to be a better organ-sparing option than short-course radiotherapy (RT). In the STAR-TREC trial, 78.5% of CRT patients avoided major surgery at 12 months, compared to just 60.6% with short-course RT. The findings support a response-adapted approach to rectal preservation, though longer follow-up is still needed.
For patients with low-risk rectal cancer, avoiding surgery has long been a goal — and new trial data suggest long-course chemoradiotherapy (CRT) is the better path to get there. The STAR-TREC trial, a phase 2/3 study across 37 European sites, is the first randomized trial to directly pit long-course CRT against short-course radiotherapy (RT) as rectum-preserving strategies, with radical surgery as a comparator arm.
At the 12-month interim analysis, patients receiving CRT were significantly more likely to avoid total mesorectal excision (TME) — the standard but morbidity-heavy surgery — than those on short-course RT. The difference was largely driven by higher rates of complete tumor response with CRT.
By the Numbers:
Why it matters: TME surgery can cause lasting bowel, bladder, and sexual dysfunction. These results support offering long-course CRT as the preferred organ-preservation strategy — though the trial's primary endpoint at 30 months will be key to confirming durability.
