Education on this topic can provide useful information on how to find the necessary information required to accurately recommend the best therapy option.

Education on this topic can provide useful information on how to find the necessary information required to accurately recommend the best therapy option.

Treatment options for locally advanced or metastatic rectal cancer are evolving constantly. It is important for care teams to have an understanding of the current treatment approaches, toxicity management, and appropriate supportive care recommendations throughout a patient’s treatment course.

Treatment options for locally advanced or metastatic rectal cancer are evolving constantly. It is important for care teams to have an understanding of the current treatment approaches, toxicity management, and appropriate supportive care recommendations throughout a patient’s treatment course.

As a result of the therapeutic advances and clinical research affecting the management of patients with cancer, clinicians can benefit by comparing their individual skills of diagnosis, treatment, and management of patients with their peers. This peer interaction is an integral part in enhancing clinical decision-making skills that can improve patient care.

The management of locally advanced rectal cancer is rapidly changing based on new data from several clinical trials on the topic. Some of the important updates have involved new treatment options for dMMR/MSI-H rectal cancers and selective usage of radiation or surgery, based on reassessment of response during perioperative therapy.

Clinicians need to be informed about the importance of MSI-H/dMMR testing in patients with GI tumors and updated on the most recent clinical evidence to ensure that they select the most appropriate treatment options for their patients.

These NCCN Guidelines Insights detail recent updates to the NCCN Guidelines for Rectal Cancer, including the addition of endoscopic submucosal dissection as an option for early-stage rectal cancer, updates to the total neoadjuvant therapy approach based on the results of recent clinical trials, and the addition of a “watch-and-wait” nonoperative management approach for clinical complete responders to neoadjuvant therapy.

Targeted therapy approaches for mCRC continue to evolve as new data helps define how to best improve outcomes. Decisions regarding treatment for patients with mCRC require that clinicians be familiar with existing and new targeted therapies as well as the most effective and tolerable combination regimens.

The promising pCR data for total neoadjuvant therapy and dostarlimab and the impact these treatment strategies may have for the watch-and-wait approach have exciting implications for patients who are not candidates for surgery or for those who wish to avoid surgical morbidity.