Would you offer palliative re-irradiation to the sacrum for a patient with a prior history of RT for rectal cancer?

Local recurrence of rectal cancer is still a quite common situation we see in the clinic. Presacral space lesion with sacral involvement is one of the most common scenarios.

As a tertiary center, we have quite a few cases with locally recurrent rectal cancer. All these patients are evaluated by a mu...

I agree with @Dr. First Last. Multidisciplinary discussion for such a clinical scenario is key. If the patient is determined to be unresectable following the multidisciplinary review, I would offer palliative re-irradiation. I would favor a dose of 30 Gy in 5 fractions, sparing bowel, bladder, cauda...

Yes. The prior RT was 5 years ago, and additional RT can usually be done safely. If this is the only site of disease, then an aggressive dose with concurrent drug might be optimal, with consideration of surgery to follow RT/CT. But, the neurological symptoms suggest infiltration of the sacrum so res...

See articles below:

Grønlie Guren et al., PMID 25613395

Youssef et al., PMID 28740875