Tumor responses to induction chemotherapy
As shown in Table 2, the responders with overall CR and PR were 57.8% (n=48) and non-responders with SD or PD were 42.2% (n=35). The reasons why non-responders received RT or CCRT rather than surgery were individual inclination to non-surgical strategies (n=15, 42.9%), inoperable tumors (n=2, 5.7%), and low surgical curability (n=18, 51.4%). Conclusively, based upon the inaccessibility to surgery and overall evaluation from the MDT, the IC non-responders underwent the CCRT or RT instead of surgery.