Prognostic Factors Affecting Recurrence and Disease-Free Survival after Surgical Resection of Cancer Rectum

Background: This retrospective study aimed to identify predictors of tumor recurrence and disease-free survivalin patients who underwent curative surgery for rectal cancer.Patients and methods: Authors analyzed data of 229 patients with rectal cancer who underwent curative surgery.Chi-square test and Binary logistic regression were used to identify factors predicting recurrence. Kaplan-Meierproduct-limit method was used to identify the relations between co-variables for time of tumor recurrence.. CoxRegression was used to multivariate analysis to detect the most significant factor predicting DFS.Results: Factors predicting tumor recurrence were age, gender, lymphovascular invasion, the more advancedtumor stage, distal resection margin lesser than 1 cm, non-effective neoadjuvant therapy, not receiving Adjuvanttherapy, greater Positive lymph node count, and greater lymph node ratio.In Multivariate analysis, younger age, female gender, greater LNR were the main significant predictors of recurrence.In Univariate analysis, factors significantly predicting Disease-free survival were Age, Histopathological Examination,Distal Resection Margin in cm, PLNC, Lymph node ratio, Effectiveness of Neoadjuvant therapy, ReceivingAdjuvant therapy.In Multivariate analysis, positive lymph node count and Adjuvant therapy were the main significant predictors ofDFS.Conclusion: Multivariate analysis identified younger age, female gender, and lymph node ratio (LNR) as themain significant predictors of recurrence. PLNC and Adjuvant therapy were the main significant predictors of DFS.Integrating identified predictors of rectal cancer recurrence and DFS into clinical practice might improve personalizedmanagement strategies and long-term outcomes. Identifying those factors might affect adjuvant-therapydecision-making and patient follow up planning.