The circumferential margin has a significant and major prognostic impact on the rates of local recurrence, distant metastasis and survival. Information on circumferential margin is important in the selection of patients for postoperative adjuvant therapy.

A refinement of the surgical resection technique for rectal cancer can be achieved on a national level, the technique of total mesorectal excision can be widely distributed, and surgery alone can give good results.

T4 tumors, R1 resections, and/or intraoperative perforation of the tumor or bowel wall are main features of low rectal cancers, causing inferior oncologic outcomes for tumors in this area. If surgery is optimized, preventing intraoperative perforation and involvement of the circumferential resection margin, the prognosis for cancers of the lower rectum seems not to be inherently different from that for tumors at higher levels. In that case, the level of the tumor or the type of resection will not be indicators for selecting patients for radiotherapy.

The management of incisional hernia is currently not standardised. In order to answer relevant questions of incisional hernia surgery, an international hernia register should be established.

The main problem of transanal excision for early rectal cancer in the present study was the inability to remove all the malignancy. Patients treated with transanal excision had significantly higher rates of local recurrence compared with patients who underwent major surgery. Patients who had transanal excision had inferior survival, but they were older than those who had major surgery.