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The UK trial that settled how rectal cancer is treated before surgery: five days of radiotherapy for everyone beats waiting to see who needs it afterwards.
CR07 randomised 1,350 people with operable rectal cancer to a week of preoperative radiotherapy or to surgery first with chemoradiotherapy afterwards only if the pathologist found tumour at the circumferential resection margin. Local recurrence fell by 61 percent with preoperative radiotherapy (hazard ratio 0.39, 0.27 to 0.58, p < 0.0001), an absolute difference at three years of 6.2 percent (4.4 percent against 10.6 percent), and disease-free survival improved by 24 percent (0.76, 0.62 to 0.94, p = 0.013). Overall survival did not differ. The trial was led from Leeds with Phil Quirke's pathology, and its companion staging work (MERCURY) showed MRI could pick out who was at risk before any treatment began.
The full inclusion and exclusion criteria are on the registry record. Read 2026-10-07. Recruiting overall does not mean a particular site is open; ask the study team.
Criteria as posted are in the stored snapshot. Read 2026-10-07.
ClinicalTrials.gov data courtesy of the US National Library of Medicine.
Shares David Sebag-Montefiore, Leeds Cancer Centre, St James's University Hospital, Rectal cancer, Colorectal cancer and the tags uk, rectal.
Shares Rectal cancer, Colorectal cancer and the tags uk, rectal.
Shares David Sebag-Montefiore, Leeds Cancer Centre, St James's University Hospital, Colorectal cancer and the tag uk.
Shares David Sebag-Montefiore, Rectal cancer, Colorectal cancer and the tag uk.
Shares Rectal cancer, Colorectal cancer and the tag uk.
Shares the tags uk, radiotherapy.
Shares the tags uk, radiotherapy.
Shares MRC Clinical Trials Unit at UCL, Colorectal cancer and the tag uk.
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