Current evidence regarding the role of adjuvant chemotherapy in rectal cancer patients with pathologic complete response after neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract

Purpose: The aim of this meta-analysis was to investigate the role of adjuvant chemotherapy (AC) in rectal cancer patients with pathologic complete response (pCR) after neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (nCRT) and curative resection. Methods: This study was completed in accordance to the PRISMA guidelines and the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions. The electronic scholar databases (Medline, Web of Science, Scopus) were screened for eligible articles. The level of evidence (LoE) was assessed using the GRADE methodology. Results: Overall, 23 non-randomized studies and 17,406 patients were included in the present meta-analysis. Pooled comparisons confirmed that AC improved overall survival (HR: 0.68, p=0.0003), but not disease-free (p=0.22) and recurrence-free survival (p=0.39). However, the LoE for all outcomes was characterized as “very low,” due to the absence of RCTs. Conclusions: Considering the study limitations and the lack of randomized studies, further high-quality RCTs are required to confirm the findings of our study. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.