The Colon Club

This evening I came across this article:

https://prostate-center.com/follow-up/biopsy-post-rt/

It’s about prostate cancer. I’m wondering if the same / similar rule might apply to rectal cancer.

Doing a biopsy after radiation is not accurate because of all the false positives and false negatives. So should a biopsy ever be done after radiation treatment? Occasionally. Basically when all of the following four conditions are met:

Two or three years or more have passed since radiation.

DH completed his radiation 7/29/2020, and recently had a biopsy which showed a small amount of cancer cells in one sample. Now he’s preparing for surgery that will result in a permanent colostomy. Is it possible that although these cells are cancer cells that their dna is damaged enough to make them relatively harmless?

We do plan to follow up with the doctor who administered the radiation treatment, but maybe someone here is familiar?

I think the short answer is “I don’t know”, but in a quick search I couldn’t find any of the same concerns raised for prostrate cancer as being applicable to rectal cancer. I am fairly sure I’ve seen patients have biopsies after radiation to assess complete clinical response for a W&W decision, so that might suggest they are still reasonably reliable? Perhaps checking the large W&W/Habr-Gama thread here might give you a clue too.

The oncologist found the article interesting, however assured us that prostate cancer is a different beast than rectal cancer, and unfortunately didn’t feel this was our case.