Quality of life after rectal resection for cancer

There is no unequivocal evidence that the quality of life after sphincter-preserving anterior resection for rectal cancer would be superior as compared to abdominoperineal excision with colostomy.

A Cochrane review included 26 non-randomised studies with a total of 3 675 subjects. Ten trials found that people with rectal cancer undergoing traditional abdominoperineal excision/Hartmann's operation with a colostomy did not have poorer quality of life measures than patients undergoing sphincter-preserving anterior resection. The rest of the studies found some difference, but not always in favour of non-stoma patients. Due to clinical heterogeneity and the fact that all studies were observational trials, meta-analysis of the included studies was not possible.

Comment: The quality of evidence is downgraded by inconsistency (variability in results across studies).

Ədəbiyyat

1. Pachler J, Wille-Jørgensen P. Quality of life after rectal resection for cancer, with or without permanent colostomy. Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2005;(2):CD004323 [Review content assessed as up-to-date: 22 February 2010].