Implementing complete mesocolic excision for colon cancer – mission completed?

The definition of complete mesocolic excision (CME) for colon carcinomas revolutionized the way of colon surgery. This technique conquered the world starting from Erlangen. Nevertheless, currently new developments especially in minimally invasive surgery challenge CME to become settled as a standard of care. To understand the evolution of CME, anatomical details occurring during embryogenesis and their variations have to be considered. This knowledge is indispensable to transfer CME from an open to a minimally invasive setting. Conventional surgery for colon cancer (non-CME) has a morbidity of 12.1–28.5% and a 3.7% mortality risk vs. 12–36.4% morbidity and 2.1–3% mortality for open CME. The morbidity of laparoscopic CME is between 4 and 31% with a mortality of 0.5–0.9%. In robotic assisted surgery, morbidity between 10 and 25% with a mortality of 1% was published. The cancer-related survival after 3 and 5 years for open CME is respectively 91.3–95% and 90% vs. 87% and 74% for non-CME. For laparoscopic CME the 3- and 5-year cancer-related survival is 87.8–97% and 79.5–80.2%. In stage UICC III the 3- and 5-year cancer-related survival is 83.9% and 80.8% in the Erlangen data of open technique vs. 75.4% and 65.5–71.7% for laparoscopic surgery. For stage UICC III the 3- and 5-year local tumor recurrence is 3.8%. The published data and the results from Erlangen demonstrate that CME is safe in experienced hands with no increased morbidity. It offers an obvious survival benefit for the patients which can be achieved solely by surgery. Teaching programs are needed for minimally invasive CME to facilitate this technique in the same quality compared to open surgery. Passing these challenges CME will become the standard of care for patients with colon carcinomas offering all benefits of minimally invasive surgery and oncological outcome.