OR / Prep · Colorectal Surgery · laparoscopic
You’re scrubbing into
Low anterior resection with TME
Why are we operating?
Rectal cancer surgery is a dissection of one embryological package: the mesorectum comes out intact or the operation has failed, whatever the margins say.
Indication: Rectal cancer above the sphincters, usually after MDT-directed neoadjuvant therapy.
The operation in 4 steps
01Vascular control
02Total mesorectal excision
03Distal division
04Anastomosis and defunctioning
Watch it done
Low anterior resection: surgical management of rectal cancer
The University of Toronto atlas explaining the resection, the mesorectal plane and the anastomosis.
Source: TVASurg, Toronto Video Atlas of Surgery · Watch on YouTube
Conceptual teaching for learners preparing to observe and assist under supervision, not operative instructions. Five minutes from now you should know why this operation exists, what its shape is, and which structures it is designed not to injure.