Recent advances of the safe distance of the distal excision margin for rectal cancer / 国际外科学杂志

Rectal cancer does great harm to human health which is one of the common gastrointestinal malignancies.The most effective treatment to rectal cancer is surgical resection at present.With the increasing demand on the quality of life,we minimize the surgical resection to preserve the anal function of patients while removing the tumor completely depends on the distal excision margin.But how long of the distance is safe? Lots of domestic and foreign scholars have a great controversy without a certain definition.This article reviews the progress on the distal excision margin,aiming to give help to clinical sphincter-preserving surgery.