Why choose Mayo Clinic for colorectal cancer treatment.

There's a number of exciting things in the future for colorectal cancer care and the research occurring at Mayo Clinic. These encompass new chemotherapeutics or immune therapies. From surgical approaches, we're continuing to push the limits with robotic surgery and digital surgery using augmented reality and artificial intelligence. This really helps enhance the care that we can deliver for patients with colorectal cancer. Quality of life issues are a big issue for most patients. It's one of their number one questions. We spend a lot of time educating the patient and trying to determine what their goals of quality of life are. Reconstructive surgery is absolutely the goal and gold standard for Mayo Clinic. We use modern technology robotics to provide very small incisions to do big operations. We couple that with outstanding and innovative post-operative care that really reduces the risk of complication. And these options of minimally invasive surgery, the newest techniques, good post-operative recovery, are really the hallmarks of what you can find here at Mayo Clinic. Many times we see patients at Mayo Clinic as a second opinion for tumors that they're told are unresectable or inoperable. And often we can help them. And a second opinion at Mayo Clinic is really invaluable. That often encompasses a visit with many of our physicians, surgeons, medical, and radiation oncologists, where we have a comprehensive review of their cancer care to date, their previous studies. There are a number of things that are innovative or unique about the approach here. I'd say one that is quite unique is the use of intraoperative radiation therapy for the very locally advanced population of patients that have tumors that may be thought to be even unremovable by surgeons.

We'll often see patients who've been told at home that their cancer cannot be removed. But we found in those patients, if we treat them with chemotherapy and then a long course of radiation with chemotherapy, we have surgeons here who can remove the tumor. And we probably have the greatest experience in the world at using that to treat rectal cancers that are advanced. I think that having a center that's focused on research, but research that's applied to patient care, and that's what Mayo does best, is certainly a plus a positive that ensure that patients have access to the most innovative and the latest and the greatest that can be found anywhere around the planet. We have a number of different clinical trials available, and it really depends on where the patient is in the course of their disease. There is so much work going on right now about the underlying mechanisms of what drives colorectal cancer that I'm hopeful that new drugs will be developed to be able to target all of those processes. I'm hopeful we'll be able to treat those new drugs to Mayo Clinic and test those, and provide better treatment opportunities for our patients. I think patients should seek care at Mayo Clinic with colorectal cancer because we really offer the expertise in treating this.

We're a high volume cancer center. Our outcomes with colorectal cancer set benchmarks across the country, and patients have high quality, safe, and effective care. I think for any patient who's seeking surgical treatment for colorectal cancer, it's important that they look at not just the surgeon as an individual, but the team. Because of our integrated care, the patient comes through the door for screening. If we find a polyp, or we find a cancer, that patient is meeting with the gastroenterologist, no time with a surgeon. With a geneticist, with the medical oncologist if needed, and then anyone as part of the team. That is quite unique. And that is why I think the care overall, the integrated level of care at Mayo Clinic is certainly superior care.