In the Czech Republic, rectal carcinoma does not only represent a medical problem, but also a socio-economic one. At our department, we treated totally 266 patients with rectal carcinoma in the years 1998 through 2006. Among our patients, neoadjuvant treatment led to a reduction in size of the tumour in 37.6 %, in 50.8 % the size did not change. In T3 tumours, the reduction in size was observed in 36.7 % of the patients and did not change in 56 %; in T4 tumours, the reduction in size was observed in 60% of the patients. In 88 % of the patients who underwent the operation, no residual tumour was found, in 9 % of patients, a residual tumour was detected. In 19 % of the patients, a local recurrence of the tumour was detected. A statistically significant relationship was proved between the appearance of the metastatic disease and the presence of angioinvasion and the size of the primary tumour according to the Duke's classification (Tab. 1, Fig. 4, Ref. 20).

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