The research program at the RAH Colorectal Research Group has three main stems which cover major areas in colorectal patient care: Post-operative recovery, colorectal surgical oncology, and inflammatory bowel disease. Current and recent research activity is summarised below:

Post-operative Recovery
Colorectal Surgical Oncology
  • Artificial intelligence and deep learning to more accurately diagnose positive lymph node disease on pre-operative imaging in colorectal cancer (data collection phase).
  • TNT prospective study of Total Neoadjuvant Therapy in locally advanced and stage IV rectal cancer (ethics submission phase).
  • RENO: Prospective Study of ‘Watch and Wait’ Strategy in Patients with Rectal Cancer who have Developed a Clinical Complete Response with concurrent Chemo‐radiotherapy: RENO trial (REctal cancer No Operation).
    Protocol here: https://gicancer.org.au/clinical-trial/reno/#health-professionals
  • REACCT collaborative: Research in Early Age Colorectal Cancer Trends. Data collected and submitted to the first study. Details here: twitter.com/REACCTcollab
  • Impact of lateral pelvic lymph nodes on outcome after neoadjuvant chemoradiation for rectal cancer. A systematic review has been completed and is the writeup phase. We have looked at RAH data which demonstrates that patients with lateral node disease have a significantly higher rate of local recurrence, despite being treated with chemoradiation. We are now in the final stages of leading and completing an international case:control study looking at whether surgical resection of these nodes after chemoradiation affects outcome (this includes our patients, and those form major centres in the Netherlands and the USA).