Adjuvant Radiotherapy is Associated With Increased Sexual Dysfunction in Male Patients Undergoing Resection for Rectal Cancer: A Predictive Model

Preoperative Radiotherapy is Associated with Worse Functional Results After Coloanal Anastomosis for Rectal Cancer

“…16 However, male sexual function has been reported to be altered by preoperative radiotherapy. 16,22 In our study, whereas patients with and those without radiotherapy had similar scores on the Sexual Health Inventory for Men at 4 and 12 months, sexual function was still impaired at 24 months, particularly in patients who had received preoperative radiotherapy. A long decline in sexual function might be partially explained by delayed damage to the sympathetic nervous system due to radiation treatment.…”

Neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy for rectal carcinoma: effects on anastomotic leak rate and postoperative bladder dysfunction after non-emergency sphincter-preserving anterior rectal resection

“…If this rule is observed, TME leads to a lesser degree of sexual function impairment in men compared to conventional rectal cancer surgery [31]. Data on the relationship between preoperative RT/CRT and postoperative autonomic pelvic nerve function are extraordinarily sparse; however, some studies have demonstrated additional impairment of sexual function in men receiving preoperative radiation plus TME compared to TME alone [32,33]. It is unclear if this effect is a direct consequence of radiation, a result of compromised tolerance of the irradiated nerves to ischemia, or due to the higher level of difficulty of surgical dissection in irradiated tissue [32].…”

784 Clinical applications of molecular profiling of colorectal cancer

“…The ability to predict response to pretreatment chemoradiation may spare poorly responding patients from undergoing aggressive and severely toxic treatment [577,578] number [579]. Other molecules including P21 [63], EGFR [64], COX2 [580], MUC2 [529] and growth hormone receptor [581] were also examined as potential markers; nevertheless, it seems unlikely that they will prove to be clinically useful response predictors…”

“…The ability to predict response to pretreatment chemoradiation may spare poorly responding patients from undergoing aggressive and severely toxic treatment [577,578] from which they would derive no benefit. At present there is no reliable technique to predict clinical or pathological complete tumour regression after treatment and limited data exist for each potential modality in this regard.…”