The main purpose of the present work was to evaluate the efforts taken by the Norwegian surgical community in order to promote and enhance the standards of rectal cancer treatment on a national level, in particular: - to examine the outcome of rectal cancer surgery following implementation of total mesorectal excision as the standard rectal resection technique - to explore the prognostic impact of the circumferential resection margin on local recurrence, distant metastases and overall survival following mesorectal excision - to evaluate the oncological outcomes following mesorectal excision of cancer of the lower rectum, particularly the rates of local recurrence and overall survival for patients with tumours in this areas - to illustrate the influence of a rectal cancer registry as a quality control instrument on outcome of rectal treatment, and furthermore, to investigate the rates of postoperative mortality, anastomic leakage, local recurrence (LR) and overall survival related to hospital caseload among Norwegian hospitals during implementation of mesorectal excision
