MERCURY 3

A retrospective and prospective cohort study, MERCURY 3 aims to improve the prognostic accuracy of preoperative staging in patients diagnosed with rectal cancer.

This study seeks to prove that a different staging system of mrTDV which assesses tumour deposits (TDs) and tumour spread into veins (EMVI) will improve the quality of care of patients diagnosed with rectal cancer compared with the current practice of using TNM. We will do this by proving that the prognosis from using mrTDV is much more reliable and accurate than the current mrTNM. 

We aim to prove that when radiologists look for Tumour Deposits or EMVI (mrTDV staging) on MRI scans, this improves the accuracy of how we document cancer behaviour when patients are first diagnosed and therefore oncologists and surgeons can use the information to plan the right kinds of treatment before surgery takes place.