Watch & Wait strategy in the radical treatment of rectal cancer: we achieve a complete response by all means?

In the last decade, strategy with refusal of surgical treatment for rectal cancer patients who have achieved complete tumor regression after neoadjuvant therapy have been widely accepted and approved by the clinical guidelines of leading cancer organizations. This strategy demonstrates good long-term results that confirm its safety. However, the lack of sufficient long-term observations, the imperfection of the methods for registering a complete clinical response, disagreements about the optimal timing for assessing of the effect of the treatment performed stimulate the continuation of the research.