Liakakos et al. [1] concluded from a retrospective series of 1,057 selected patients studied by Miyajima et al. [2] that laparoscopic surgery for rectal cancer is safe. Although cohort studies have shown safety, the most important outcomes such as disease-free survival and the recurrence rate need to be demonstrated in prospective randomized controlled trials before laparoscopic surgery is accepted as the standard approach.Laparoscopic resection of colonic cancer is proved to be safe, with no difference in long-term oncologic outcome compared with open surgery [3-5]. However, long-term outcome data after laparoscopic surgery for rectal cancer still are not available.
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