Selective lateral pelvic lymph node dissection through a robotic approach for rectal cancer treated with preoperative chemoradiotherapy: a long way for generalization

Lateral pelvic lymph node dissection (LPND) in addition to total mesorectal excision (TME) without radiotherapy has been considered a standard of treatment in Japan, even though LPN metastasis is not suspected on preoperative radiologic examination (1,2). This is so called “prophylactic” LPND, and basically prophylactic LPND is performed bilaterally.