Editorial
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2019. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Aug 21, 2019; 25(31): 4294-4299
Published online Aug 21, 2019. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v25.i31.4294
Lateral lymph node dissection for low rectal cancer: Is it necessary?
Niki Christou, Jeremy Meyer, Christian Toso, Frédéric Ris, Nicolas Christian Buchs
Niki Christou, Service de Chirurgie Digestive, Endocrinienne et Générale, CHU de Limoges, Limoges Cedex 87042, France
Niki Christou, Jeremy Meyer, Christian Toso, Frédéric Ris, Nicolas Christian Buchs, Division of Digestive Surgery, University Hospitals of Geneva, Genève 1211, Switzerland
Niki Christou, Jeremy Meyer, Christian Toso, Frédéric Ris, Nicolas Christian Buchs, Unit of Surgical Research, University of Geneva, Genève 1206, Switzerland
Author contributions: Christou N, Meyer J, Toso C, Ris F and Buchs NC contributed to the writing of the manuscript and its critical revision; all authors approved the final version of the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Niki Christou, MD, PhD, Academic Fellow, Surgeon, Service de Chirurgie Digestive, Endocrinienne et Générale, CHU de Limoges, Avenue Martin Luther King, Limoges Cedex 87042, France. christou.niki19@gmail.com
Telephone: +33-6-84569392
Received: May 5, 2019
Peer-review started: May 5, 2019
First decision: June 10, 2019
Revised: June 19, 2019
Accepted: July 19, 2019
Article in press: July 19, 2019
Published online: August 21, 2019
Processing time: 109 Days and 14 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Total mesorectal excision has remained the gold standard treatment for mid and low rectal tumors since its introduction in the late 1980s. However, where the Western guidelines consider spread to the lateral lymph nodes as an advanced form of the disease and use neoadjuvant radiochemotherapy liberally, the Japanese guidelines define it as a local disease and proceed to lateral lymph node dissection with or without neoadjuvant treatment. We review the current literature for therapeutic strategies, enhancing knowledge for treatment of patients with low and mid rectal cancer.