A teaching project on rectal cancer and concentration of procedures: a comparison of oncological results between Catalonia and the rest of autonomous communities.

Introduction: the goal of this study was to compare the oncological results (local recurrence, metastasis and overall survival) obtained by the Proyecto Docente del Cáncer de Recto of the Spanish Association of Surgeons (AEC) (Proyecto Vikingo, PV) in Catalonia versus the rest of Spanish autonomous communities.

Methods: the PV database includes 4,508 patients who underwent a curative resection between March 2006 and December 2010, from the first 59 hospitals included in PV; 1,163 were from Catalonia and 3,345 were from the rest of Spain. There was a minimum follow-up of five years.

Results: in Catalonia, the five-year cumulative incidence was 8% (95% CI: 6.4-9.9) for local recurrence, 17.7% (95% CI: 15.4-20.2) for metastasis and 75% (95% CI: 72.4-77.7) for overall survival. In the rest of autonomous communities, these figures were 7% (95% CI: 6.2-8.2) for local recurrence, 22.3% (95% CI: 20.7-23.9) for metastasis, and 71% (95% CI: 69.4-72.9) for overall survival. Variables associated with tumor recurrence in PV included Hartmann's procedure, intraoperative perforation and circumferential margin involvement.

Conclusion: the results obtained by the Proyecto Docente del Cáncer de Recto were homogeneous between Catalonia and the rest of the autonomous communities.