The Comparative Study Between Endorectal Ultrasonography Preoperative Staging And Postoperative Pathological Staging In Rectal Cancer

Aim:To investigate the diagnostic value of endorectal ultrasonography (ERUS) in preoperative staging of rectal cancer, and compare with postoperative pathological staging.Methods:Forty-three patients with pathologically confirmed rectal cancer were detected preoperatively by ERUS between October2010and March2012in this hospital. During the examination, the examiner need to observe the tumor’s location, size, shape, infiltration depth, the circumference of the bowel wall involved, and extra-rectal invasion of lesions, recorded the ultrasound TNM staging, then compared the preoperative staging with those of postoperative pathologic staging.Results:The overall accuracy of ERUS in T staging was60.5%(26/43). The accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity of ERUS for local advanced rectal cancer were67.4%(29/43),63.4%(21/33) and50.0%(5/10), respectively. The accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity of ERUS in lymph node metastasis were69.8%(30/43),87.0%(20/23) and50.0%(10/20). There was no significant difference of accuracy among the three tumor locations (p>0.5). The accuracy of ERUS for T staging improved with experience, although there was no significant difference(p>0.5).The circumference of the bowel wall involved by tumor was positively correlated with pathological T staging(r=0.534, p<0.01).Conclusion:ERUS has a high diagnostic accuracy in preoperative local staging for rectal cancer, and has become a routine examination to help to formulate a personal treatment strategy. ERUS in combination with the circumference of the bowel wall involved can improve the accuracy of preoperative T staging.