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Comment & Response
June 27, 2019

Looking Forward, Not Backward, on Watch and Wait for Rectal Cancer

Author Affiliations
  • 1Division of General Surgery, Department of Surgery, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
  • 2Institute of Health Policy, Management, and Evaluation, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
  • 3Department of Surgery, St Michael’s Hospital, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
JAMA Oncol. 2019;5(8):1230-1231. doi:10.1001/jamaoncol.2019.1867

To the Editor Smith et al1 reported the results of 113 patients with rectal cancer who underwent a watch-and-wait (WW) strategy after clinical complete response (cCR) to neoadjuvant therapy and 136 patients with pathologic complete response (pCR) identified at total mesorectal excision (TME). Although this study adds to a body of retrospective literature, key knowledge gaps limiting widespread use of WW remain.

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