Background: Preoperative clinical staging of rectal tumors is very important to allow surgeons make informed decisions about the types of surgeries that should be performed. Endorectal ultrasonography (ERUS) is one of the tools that has been commonly used in clinical staging of rectal tumors. The aim of this study was to evaluate the accuracy of the preoperative rectal tumor staging using endorectal ultrasonography in comparison with the postoperative histopathological staging.
Methods: The histopathology findings of the 67 patients with rectal tumors who underwent preoperative ERUS were reviewed and compared.
Results: The overall accuracy of the ERUS assessment in the depth of tumor invasion was 88%, with overstaging at 9% and understaging at 3%. In determining perirectal nodal involvement of the 59 patients that were treated by radical rectal resection, the accuracy was 73%, with sensitivity of 77% and specificity of 70%.
Conclusion: ERUS is an objective, convenient, and highly accurate tool for preoperative rectal tumor staging, thus helping surgeons to determine the appropriate treatment modalities.