Phase II Trial of Preoperative High-dose-rate Endorectal Brachytherapy and FOLFOX Chemotherapy for Rectal Cancer

Standard treatment for rectum cancer is a pre-surgery course of external beam radiotherapy given with chemotherapy at the same time. External beam radiation can increase side effects both short and long-term by exposing normal tissue nearby the tumor such as the bladder, bowel and sexual organs. Instead, this study will use a different way of delivering radiation called brachytherapy to decrease normal tissue radiation exposure. Patient will be given three chemotherapy medications both before and after surgery: oxaliplatin (also called EloxatinTM) in combination with 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) and leucovorin (also called Folinic Acid). The purpose of this study is to find out whether giving chemotherapy and brachytherapy before surgery can: 1) enable patient's surgeon to successfully remove tumor 2) lower the risk of tumor recurrence 3) avoid patient having the side effects related to chemotherapy and external beam radiation therapy and 4) improve patient's ability to complete chemotherapy.