Chapter 12 Elective Surgery for Rectal Cancer

It could be expected that such results would best be achieved only at specialist multidisciplinary centres. A recent editorial concludes there is ‘remarkably consistent evidence that the more experienced doctors or health care systems have with the procedure, the better the results’. In regard to cancer, the authors claim that this provides ‘striking examples of markedly better outcomes with higher volume’ with 123 of 128 published studies showing evidence of a ‘volume–quality’ relationship.