Clinicopathologic Comparison of High-Dose-Rate Endorectal Brachytherapy versus Conventional Chemoradiotherapy in the Neoadjuvant Setting for Resectable Stages II and III Low Rectal Cancer

Table 1

Demographic and baseline disease characteristics for patients broken down by EBT, 3DRT, and IMRT groups with statistical comparison. EBT: endorectal brachytherapy; 3DRT: 3D conformal radiotherapy; IMRT: intensity-modulated radiotherapy; ECOG: eastern cooperative oncology group performance status; RT: radiotherapy; CEA: carcinoembryonic antigen.

Characteristic	EBT (𝑛=7)	3DRT (𝑛=14)	IMRT (𝑛=11)	𝑃
Age (mean ± SD)	60.4±17.4	58.2±12.0	52.3±7.6	0.32
Sex (female%)	100	29	64	0.007
Race (Caucasian%)	85.7	64.2	63.6	0.55
ECOG (mean ± SD)	0.21±0.41	0.17±0.39	0.20±0.42	0.84
Pre-RT CEA (median (range) ng/mL)	4.5 (1.5–15.5)	7.4 (1.5–168.1)	3.7 (1.5–11.9)	0.35^*
Pre-RT tumor volume (median (range) cm^3)	13.1 (0.9–26.4)	25.2 (6.3–119.0)	6.1 (1.9–76.6)	0.11^*
Time between pre-RT MRI and RT start (mean ± SD days)	20±11	22±10	34±31	0.30
Number. T3 (%)	5 (71)	12 (86)	8 (73)	0.66
Number T4 (%)	0 (0)	2 (14)	0 (0)	0.25
Number N0 (%)	4 (57)	4 (29)	3 (27)	0.36
Number N1 (%)	3 (43)	8 (57)	6 (55)	0.82
Number N2 (%)	0 (0)	2 (14)	0 (0)	0.25
Distance of tumor from anal verge (mean ± SD cm)	6.2±1.9	8.4±5.0	5.4±2.5	0.80

^*Medians and ranges are given to better represent the data, but statistical comparison was performed among means.