Abstract:
Objective To investigate the factors influencing the achievement of pathologic complete response (pCR) after neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (NCRT) for rectal adenocarcinoma and to investigate the effect of pCR on survival outcome.
Methods A total of 98 patients with rectal adenocarcinoma who underwent NCRT combined with curative resection between January 2014 and December 2017 at The Affiliated Cancer Hospital of Zhengzhou University & Henan Cancer Hospital were retrospectively enrolled. The correlations of clinicopathological features with pCR were evaluated, and the influence of pCR on prognosis was analyzed.
Results :Of the 98 patients, 19 (19.4%) achieved pCR after NCRT. Univariate analysis showed that preoperative lymph node status, pre-chemoradiotherapy carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) levels, tumor size, invasion of the circumference of intestinal wall, and KRAS mutation status were significant influencing factors. Logistic regression revealed that pre-chemoradiotherapy CEA levels (≤5 μg/L) odds ratio (OR)=4.095, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.131-14.823, P=0.032 and invasion of the circumference of intestinal wall (≤1/2) (OR=3.268, 95% CI: 1.015-10.527, P=0.047) were independent factors influencing the achievement of pCR after NCRT for rectal cancer. Univariate survival analysis showed that the 3-year disease-free survival (DFS) rate in the non-pCR group was 71.1%, which was significantly lower than that in the pCR group (100.0%, P < 0.05). There was no significant difference in the 3- year overall survival rate between the pCR (100.0%) and non-pCR (88.5%) groups (P>0.05).
Conclusions Pre-treatment CEA levels and invasion of the circumference of intestinal wall are helpful in predicting the achievement of pCR. It is suggested that both can be used as indicators for evaluating tumor response after radical resection and neoadjuvant therapy. Therefore, the evaluation of these factors will be helpful in guiding individualized treatment. The DFS rate in the non-pCR group was worse than that in the pCR group.