Management of Persistent or Locally Recurrent Epidermoid Cancer of the Anal Canal with Abdominoperineal Resection

Abstract

We retrospectively evaluated the outcome of 22 patients with epidermoid cancer of the anal canal who underwent surgical salvage after failure of primary chemoradiotherapy. Patients who required surgery had significantly more advanced T-stage than those who did not fail chemoradiotherapy. Eighteen patients failed surgical salvage. Invasion through the muscle wall of the bowel was present in 16 of 18 patients compared with two of four patients who have no evidence of disease (follow-up 5-10 years). Failure occurred only in the pelvis in 13 of the patients who died of disease. The mean time to death after surgery was 19 months. We confirm the overall poor results of conventional abdominoperineal resection in those patients who have failed previous therapy. Most failures occur in the pelvis. Transanorectal ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) may allow better selection of patients for exenterative procedures and identify those not amenable to successful salvage.