Surgical treatment of rectal cancer: innovations and controversies

During last decades, there have been a number of critical improvements for the treatment of rectal cancer. Since the milestone description of the abdominoperineal resection by Miles more than 100 years ago, for treatment of lower rectal tumors, surgical advances have progressed along the last century including low anterior resection with Knight and Griffen reconstruction, colonic pouches, etc. However, the most important advance was the description by Heald in the 80’s of the concept of total mesorectal excision.