Treatment of the SPECC lesion

Abstract

The treatment of the Significant Polyp and Early Colorectal Cancer lesion has evolved from strategies formally based around didactic pathological diagnoses (‘cancer or no cancer?’) and the limited availability of certain techniques (‘what can we do?’) into a more advanced situation of understanding diagnostic uncertainty (‘the what if scenario’), factoring patient preference & approach to risk and the availability of a wide range of techniques in both the rectum and the colon. It is now the former rather than the latter which are driving decision making and treatment strategies (‘what should we do’). Decisions are now made around possible planes of ‘safe’ excision and options for completion treatment and these issues are discussed in full. The range of techniques available extends to cover advanced endoscopic endoluminal therapies as well as the recently expanded range of surgical options for endoluminal treatment particularly in rectal lesions. This review looks at these and considers two new paradigms the therapeutic strategies available and those which are evolving.