Editorial: Advances in proctology and colorectal surgery

Abstract

Proctology and colorectal surgery for benign disorders and neoplasia represent a broad field of general surgery. Their relevance is well known, on the one hand because of the still extremely high frequency in Western countries of colon-rectal cancer (currently estimated as the third most frequent cancer in the world), and on the other hand because of the serious impact on the quality of life (QoL) of patients suffering from benign, inflammatory, and functional diseases of the lower gastrointestinal tract. This Research Topic of Frontiers in Surgery, composed by forty-five original articles on colorectal surgery and proctology addresses several topics including non-surgical solutions, diagnostic aspects, translational research, and specific scenarios.Rectal cancer, which accounts for about 30% of all colorectal malignancies, has been studied from several perspectives. The routine use of the LARS score after rectal surgery to assess the bowel function and QoL of patients is highly recommended.(De Simone et al.)Pavecivius et al. conducted a case-control study to investigate the differences in terms of overall survival and surgical outcome between the invasive surgical approach with TME and local excision (LE) +/-chemotherapy of early rectal cancer. The authors identified that approximately 85.2% of the patients had no Low Anterior Rectal Resection Syndrome (LARS) in LE group compared with 54.5% in TME group (p = 0.018); furthermore, they reported comparable survival outcomes ...