Our Expertise & Technology

	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.