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Dr. Kenneth Offit with Research Study Assistant Emily Glogowski
Dr. Kenneth Offit with Research Study Assistant Emily Glogowski

At Memorial Sloan-Kettering, a multidisciplinary team of specialists provides the best possible clinical care.

Eradicating Cancer, Preserving Function

Our surgeons have developed new techniques that preserve bowel, bladder, and sexual function. As a result of these treatment advances, the number of patients requiring a permanent colostomy after rectal cancer surgery is now only 10 percent.

  • Minimally Invasive Surgery

    Colorectal tumors can often be removed by minimally invasive (laparoscopic) methods. Advances in technology and fiber optics allow surgeons to perform complex procedures through small incisions. In addition to laparoscopic colorectal resection, transanal endoscopic microsurgery (TEM) enables surgeons to remove certain rectal tumors through the anus, thereby avoiding an abdominal incision altogether.

  • Sparing Healthy Tissue

    Our doctors are leaders in the development and use of preoperative chemoradiation treatment regimens as part of a concerted, overall programmatic effort toward sphincter preservation as an alternative to permanent colostomy in patients with rectal and anal cancers. For selected patients whose rectal cancer has recurred in the pelvis, we also offer intraoperative radiation therapy (IORT), which permits the delivery of high doses of radiation therapy directly to the tumor during surgery while sparing surrounding healthy tissues. Intensity-modulated radiation therapy and image-guided radiation therapy are other tools used to treat rectal and anal cancers.

  • Interventional Radiology and Image-Guided Therapies

    Specially trained doctors use medical imaging to identify and target tumors in the body that cannot be removed but can be treated locally. Using specially designed needles, metastases to the liver or the lungs can be destroyed, eliminating disease and improving patient outcomes.

  • Reconstruction for Quality of Life

    Memorial Sloan-Kettering surgeons pioneered a reconstruction technique that builds a new rectum from a portion of the colon. This and other methods of rectal reconstruction are now combined with techniques to preserve nerves vital to sexual functioning. In men with rectal cancer, our potency preservation rates are very high.

Clinical Research

Our Clinical Trials
Our Clinical Trials
Learn more about our investigational approaches for colorectal cancer

Memorial Sloan-Kettering research helped establish the effectiveness of irinotecan, a drug now approved for the initial treatment of metastatic colorectal cancer when given with 5-fluorouracil and leucovorin, and for patients with metastatic colorectal cancer that has persisted or returned despite prior chemotherapy.

Our investigators also led studies leading to the approval of the drugs oxaliplatin and cetuximab. Oxaliplatin is now commonly used, along with 5-fluorouracil and leucovorin (a regimen called FOLFOX), to treat stage III colorectal cancer that has been surgically removed, as well as for stage IV (metastatic) colorectal cancer. The drug has been shown to slow cancer growth, reduce the risk of recurrence, and (in some patients) improve survival. Cetuximab is a drug used alone or in combination with irinotecan to slow disease progression in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer.

New Technologies for Advanced Cancers

The liver is a common site for colorectal cancer to spread. For patients whose disease has spread to the liver, chemotherapy delivered directly to the liver can shrink tumors more effectively than that given through a vein in the arm. Memorial Sloan-Kettering has an active program developing new technologies to deliver chemotherapy through a pump placed directly into the hepatic artery, which leads to the liver.

For patients with tumor spread to a few sites in the liver or lung, thermal ablation can sometimes be applied to burn or freeze tumors with a small needle. These techniques include radiofrequency ablation, microwave ablation, and cryoablation. Our team is also investigating the role of newer techniques to safely destroy cancer with tools such as irreversible electroporation (the "NanoKnife"). A National Institutes of Health-funded study is analyzing tissue from the ablation zone to see if this approach can facilitate the early identification of patients at risk for tumor recurrence after treatment.


Last Updated: Mar. 30, 2009
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