Colon and Rectal Cancer Treatments

When colorectal cancer is discovered in the early stages, chance of a cure is nearly 90%.

Coordinated care in one location

At Roswell Park, patients with colorectal cancer benefit from care that’s coordinated and delivered in one location. Members of the team—from Surgical Oncology, Medical Oncology, Radiology, and Radiation Medicine—have multidisciplinary conferences during which they review every patient’s case, and have clinics right next to one another.

A large number of patients with rectal cancer will need multimodalitytherapy—chemotherapy plus radiation, then surgery, then chemotherapy after surgery. All of those treatments are coordinated by our dedicated colorectal team, so you don’t have to see your surgeon at one office and drive across town to see your medical oncologist and drive somewhere else to see your radiation oncologist. We have it all here, and often we can get same-day consultations, so there’s no delay in starting therapy.

Treatment options offered at RPCI for Colorectal Cancer

• Robot-assisted colectomy (removal of all or part of the colon) and rectal surgery
• Laparoscopic colectomy
• Open colectomy
• Chemotherapy, including Erbitux® targeted therapy for disease that has spread beyond the colon—pluspre-treatment K-RAS gene testing to determine whether the patient is likely to benefit from Erbitux
• External radiation
• Clinical trials
• Palliative care, to relieve pain and provide the highest quality of life possible for patients whose disease cannot be cured

For disease that has metastasized, or spread:

• Open or laparoscopic liver surgery
• Portal vein embolization prior to liver surgery
• Radiofrequency ablation (RFA) for disease that has spread to the liver or lungs
• Selective Internal Radiation Therapy (SIRT) for disease that has spread to the liver
• Microwave ablation for disease that has spread to the liver
• Hyperthermic Intraperitoneal Chemotherapy (HIPEC) for disease that has spread to the abdominal cavity

Surgery – minimally invasive or open

Patients with colorectal cancer may require surgery, and Roswell Park offers both traditional “open” and minimally invasive laparoscopic and robotic surgery as treatment options for the disease. Minimally invasive surgery is associated with less blood loss and faster recovery than open surgery, and because the small incisions result in less scar tissue, it is easier to operate a second time if necessary.

Robotic technology in particular has taken colorectal surgery to a new level at Roswell Park. A miniature camera gives the surgeon a magnified, three-dimensional view of the operating site, making it easier to see down into the pelvis. If you think anatomically, the pelvis is a deep hole, and, especially in heavy men, it is very narrow. You can’t put your head into the pelvis, but the camera on the robot can see all the way down, and it can swivel inside the pelvic cavity. The improved vision allows for greater accuracy of tumor removal and nerve preservation.