Total Neoadjuvant Treatment vs. Chemoradiotherapy in Local Advanced Rectal Cancer With High Risk Factors

Purpose:To compare the efficacy and the safety of total neoadjuvant chemotherapy + TME with standard neoadjuvant concurrent chemoradiotherapy + TME + adjuvant chemotherapy for locally advanced rectal cancer patients with high risk factors of recurrence. Evaluation indexes: (1) the primary evaluation index: disease-free survival (disease free survival, DFS); (2) the secondary evaluation indexes: pathological complete remission rate (pCR), the 3 year overall survival (overall survival, OS); R0 dissection rate; distant metastasis free survival (DMFS); local recurrence free survival rate (LRRFS); tumor regression grade (TRG, tumor regression grade) and the adverse reaction rate during the chemotherapy, the operation safety index; quality of life; psychological and cognitive effects, assessment of nutritional status. Safety evaluation indexes: including all adverse events observed during the experiment. Number of patients: 458 cases Study design: patients will be randomly assigned into the total neoadjuvant treatment group (experimental group, TNT) and neoadjuvant concurrent chemotherapy group (control group, CRT) in the ratio of 1: 1. The patients of experimental group will be given 1 cycle of induction CAPOX (Oxaliplatin 130mg/m2 d1, Capecitabine 1000mg/m2, bid, d1-14) prior to radiotherapy. Then pelvic IMRT/VMAT (50-50.4Gy/25-28f) and two cycles of concurrent chemotherapy (Oxaliplatin 130mg/m2, d1, d 22, Capecitabine 825mg/m2, bid, 5d/w, 25-28d) are performed. And three cycles of consolidation chemotherapy (CAPOX) are delivered after concurrent chemoradiotherapy. Total mesorectal excision (TME) is performed after completion of the whole neoadjuvant treatment. The patients of control group will receive standard concurrent neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy with capecitabine (825mg/m2, bid, 5d/w) followed by TME 6-8 weeks after the end of concurrent chemoradiotherapy. Then, patients are treated with another 6 cycles of CAPOX. Schedule: Investigators plan to finish the st