Stents in treatment of colorectal cancer - summary and personal experience

Abstract

Colorectal cancer is one of the diseases with the highest incidence in developed countries. This disease is still only widely diagnosed in an advanced stage, despite the introduction of screening. In some of these patients, endoscopic treatment using stents may be applicable.There aretwo basic indications: using stents as a bridgeto radical surgical treatment; and palliative indications. Using stents as a bridge to surgery is now questionable, after initial enthusiasm surrounding the procedure. Stents have been used for a long time in palliation of malignant stenoses in the colon, and their application as a response to a correct indication has been validated by several studies. Our experience shows that stents represent suitable and effective treatment with acceptable risk of complications within the palliative management of patients with advanced disease. Particularly, these include patients with obstruction symptoms who are not good candidates for palliative surgery due to their general condition and poor survival prognosis.