RESUMO
The treatment of rectal cancer has improved mostly because of the emergence of total mesorectal excision (TME), first described by Heald, and the adjunct of adjuvant therapy in the form of radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Laparoscopy has now been performed for more than a decade with results showing faster return to activity and decreased postoperative pain for intra-abdominal surgery. Laparoscopy is now widely used and is well accepted for the treatment of most intra-abdominal benign pathologies. Furthermore, several authors now report excellent short and medium-term results for the treatment of colorectal cancer. These study tends to show that laparoscopy can be safely applied to digestive malignancies, when oncological principles specific to laparoscopy are respected. The laparoscopic approach is in our opinion a perfect approach for the performance of TME, because of the magnification of structures that it provides, and allows the surgeon to see important structures that need to be identified for the performance of the best oncological and functional procedure possible. This paper describes in a through manner our standardized technique. We also review our own experience with laparoscopic TME, the multimodal treatment of rectal cancer, and provide an analysis of the literature about TME when performed by laparotomy and laparoscopy.