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Clinical Studies

Comment on: “Neoadjuvant chemotherapy is noninferior to chemoradiotherapy for early-onset locally advanced rectal cancer in the FOWARC trial”

British Journal of Cancer volume 130, pages 1432–1433 (2024)Cite this article

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TO THE EDITOR:

We read with interest the original paper by Cai et al., which investigated the role of preoperative radiotherapy in early-onset LARC by comparing the clinicopathological characteristics of early- and late-onset locally advanced rectal cancer (LARC), as well as short- and long-term treatment outcomes. The authors concluded that patients with early-onset LARC may not benefit from neoadjuvant radiotherapy to the same extent as patients with late-onset LARC, suggesting that its use may need to be re-evaluated [1]. We are very grateful to the authors for their efforts. Nevertheless, we would like to offer our own insights into this great finding by the authors.

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References

  1. Cai J, Lin K, Luo T, Weng J, Liu H, Yuan Z, et al. Neoadjuvant chemotherapy is noninferior to chemoradiotherapy for early-onset locally advanced rectal cancer in the FOWARC trial. Br J Cancer. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41416-024-02652-4.

  2. Jo P, Jung K, Grade M, Conradi LC, Wolff HA, Kitz J, et al. CpG island methylator phenotype infers a poor disease-free survival in locally advanced rectal cancer. Surgery. 2012;151:564–70. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.surg.2011.08.013.

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  3. Ha YJ, Kim CW, Roh SA, Cho DH, Park JL, Kim SY, et al. Epigenetic regulation of KLHL34 predictive of pathologic response to preoperative chemoradiation therapy in rectal cancer patients. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys. 2015;91:650–8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijrobp.2014.11.013.

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Funding

Henan Province Medical Science and Technology Research Project (LHGJ20210992).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pharmacy, The First People’s Hospital of Shangqiu, Shangqiu, 476100, PR China

    Letian Qiao & Yuan Liu

  2. Department of Oncology, The First People’s Hospital of Shangqiu, Shangqiu, 476100, PR China

    Qiumin Yang

Authors
  1. Letian Qiao
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  2. Yuan Liu
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  3. Qiumin Yang
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Contributions

Letian Qiao wrote the manuscript, Qiumin Yang provided methodological and theoretical support, and Yuan Liu revised the manuscript and provided financial support.

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Correspondence to Yuan Liu.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Qiao, L., Liu, Y. & Yang, Q. Comment on: “Neoadjuvant chemotherapy is noninferior to chemoradiotherapy for early-onset locally advanced rectal cancer in the FOWARC trial”. Br J Cancer 130, 1432–1433 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41416-024-02690-y

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