Maintenance Chemotherapy After Neoadjuvant Chemoradiation Therapy for Distal Rectal Cancer

Exclusion Criteria

• •initial tumor fixation to pelvic bone or side wide; technically unresectable disease
• •any evidence of distant metastasis
• •perforation
• •obstruction
• •hereditary non-polyposis colorectal cancer
• •synchronous primary colon carcinomas except T1 lesions
• •known dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase deficiency
• •prior radiation therapy to the pelvis
• •prior chemotherapy for malignancies
• •known existing uncontrolled coagulopathy
• •pregnancy or lactation
• •women of childbearing potential not using reliable and appropriate contraceptive method
• •serious, uncontrolled concurrent infection(s)
• •participation in any investigational drug study within 4 weeks preceding the start of study treatment
• •clinically significant heart disease
• •other serious uncontrolled medical conditions that might compromise study participation (in the investigator's opinion)
• •major surgery within 4 weeks prior to the study treatment
• •lack of physical integrity of the upper GI tract or malabsorption syndrome