Editorial
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2024. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Surg. Jul 27, 2024; 16(7): 1960-1964
Published online Jul 27, 2024. doi: 10.4240/wjgs.v16.i7.1960
Minimally invasive pelvic exenteration for primary or recurrent locally advanced rectal cancer: A glimpse into the future
Dimitrios Kehagias, Charalampos Lampropoulos, Ioannis Kehagias
Dimitrios Kehagias, Department of General Surgery, General University Hospital of Patras, Patras 26504, Greece
Charalampos Lampropoulos, Intensive Care Unit, Saint Andrew’s General Hospital, Patras 26335, Greece
Ioannis Kehagias, Division of Bariatric and Metabolic Surgery, Department of Surgery, University of Patras, Patras 26504, Greece
Author contributions: Kehagias I designed the overall concept and outline of the manuscript; Lampropoulos C contributed to the discussion and design of the manuscript; Kehagias D and Kehagias I contributed to writing and editing the manuscript, creating the tables, and reviewing the literature.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (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: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Dimitrios Kehagias, MD, PhD, Consultant Physician-Scientist, Department of General Surgery, General University Hospital of Patras, Rion, Patras 26504, Greece. dimikech@gmail.com
Received: February 29, 2024
Revised: May 4, 2024
Accepted: May 21, 2024
Published online: July 27, 2024
Processing time: 143 Days and 17 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: Minimally invasive and robotic pelvic exenteration (PE) is currently feasible in appropriately selected locally advanced rectal cancer patients. It is associated with decreased postoperative complications and promising oncological outcomes. The disadvantages of establishing minimally invasive PE as the gold standard treatment for these patients are the relatively small sample sizes in studies, the limited experience of surgeons, and the lack of long-term data on oncological outcomes. Additional well-designed studies with larger sample sizes and long-term data are needed to establish the benefits of the robotic and laparoscopic approaches for PE.