Fazl Q. Parray - New Treatment Modalities in Rectal Cancer

There are many books and other publications which address rectal surgery. There are fewer such works which delve into certain facets of colorectal surgery such as functional disorders, neoplasia, inflammatory conditions, or technology. Professor Parray has managed to deftly blend a variety of themes across the gamut of rectal surgery which shares the common thread of being new and/or controversial. There are many books and other publications in the field of colorectal surgery. There is a dearth of these works devoted exclusively to rectal cancer. An even smaller subset deals with technology often in the form of atlases. Professor Parray has deftly blended all of the new, exciting, and sometimes controversial techniques in one armamentarium against colorectal cancer. He is to be congratulated for having teased out the essence of each of these facets including total mesorectal excision, autonomic nerve preservation, restorative resection, minimally invasive surgery, and non-operative management. In addition to being well written and easy to read, the book has numerous outstanding and easy-to-follow illustrations. Dr. Parray has thus managed to give the reader an opportunity to peruse both a textbook and an atlas. In addition, he offers the complete tour of all of the new and controversial themes within the realm of surgical management of colorectal cancer. I congratulate him upon his work and thank him for the honor of allowing me to author this foreword.

Colorectal surgery in my days of residency was more about hemorrhoidectomies, fissurectomies, fistulectomies, and abdominoperineal resections with a permanent stoma. In the last two decades, the subject emerged as a sub-specialty because of better understanding of the pathogenesis, molecular genetics, and so many technical advances made in the field for managing colorectal diseases. Besides, sphincter-saving surgeries, natural orifice access, laparoscopes, robots, and staplers are the new concepts and new weapons to deal with a spectrum of colorectal diseases in a more effective way. Also, the role of neoadjuvant therapy has been commendable to downstage, to salvage sphincters, and to convert many inoperable into operable cancers. Adjuvant treatment by now has a very well-established role to improve the overall survival. The multimodality concept is the present preferred and accepted management for this dreadful malignancy to provide better QOL. The boom of technology introduced so many new concepts to deal with rectal cancers that ideally a surgeon feels confused to decide and know about the new techniques and to deal in an appropriate way with a particular cancer in the rectum. This book is written with a concept that all practicing surgeons and physicians dealing with rectal cancer possibly may benefit from this book by reading about all new modalities of treatment and choose the best possible modality for their patient.