Impact of hospital procedure volume on surgical operation and long-term outcomes in high-risk curatively resected rectal cancer: findings from the Intergroup 0114 Study

PURPOSE: Prior studies have demonstrated superior outcomes after a curative surgical resection of rectal cancer at hospitals where the volume of such surgeries is high. However, because these studies often lack detailed information on tumor and treatment characteristics as well as cancer recurrence, the true nature of this relation remains uncertain. PATIENTS AND METHODS: We studied a nested cohort of 1,330 patients with stage II and stage III rectal cancer participating in a multicenter, adjuvant chemoradiotherapy trial. We analyzed differences in rates of sphincter-preserving operations, overall survival, and cancer recurrence by hospital surgical volume. RESULTS: We observed a significant difference in the rates of abdominoperineal resections across tertiles of hospital procedure volume (46.3% for patients resected at low-volume, 41.3% at medium-volume, and 31.8% at high-volume hospitals; P