Circumferential resection margins and perineal complications after neoadjuvant long-course chemoradiotherapy followed by extralevator abdominoperineal excision of the rectum: Five years of activity at a single institution.

Background: Prone extralevator abdominoperineal excision of the rectum (ELAPE) has been introduced to improve the circumferential resection margins (CRM) compared with traditional APER.

Objective: We present short-term results achieved with prone ELAPE preceded by neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy during the last 5 years of activity.

Design: A retrospective review was conducted.

Settings And Patients: Prone ELAPE operations performed between September 2010 and August 2014 at Leicester Royal Infirmary preceded by neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy.

Interventions And Main Outcome Measures: Data regarding demographics, staging, neoadjuvant therapies, intraoperative perforations, and perineal complications were collected.

Results: Seventy-two patients were included. Pretreatment radiological T4 were 25.0%, histological T4 2.8%. Intraoperative perforations occurred in 2.8%, CRM was involved in 11.1%. Perineal complications consisted of superficial wound infections (20.8%), full thickness dehiscences (16.7%), hematomas (9.7%), pelvic collections (6.9%), and perineal hernias (5.6%).

Conclusions: In our experience, prone ELAPE preceded by long-course chemoradiotherapy has been successfully used in the last 5 years to resect low rectal tumors. Perineal wound complications rates are similar to those presented in series using direct perineal closures. J. Surg. Oncol. 2016;114:86-90. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.