A Study of Response to Standard Treatment Before Surgery in People With Rectal Cancer

June 1, 2026 updated by: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

DISCRN in Rectal Cancer: DISseCting Response to Neoadjuvant Therapy in Rectal Cancer

The purpose of the study is to learn more about how the body responds to standard treatment (chemoradiation and chemotherapy). The study will use the results of testing down on participants' blook, tissue, and scans to learn more about how people with rectal cancer respond to chemoradiation and chemotherapy treatment and if it is useful for predicting whether a person's cancer get better, gets worse, or stats the same after treatment.

Study Overview

Status

Recruiting

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Estimated)

60

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Contact

Study Contact Backup

Study Locations

  • United States
    • New Jersey
      • Middletown, New Jersey, United States, 07748
        • Recruiting
        • Memorial Sloan Kettering Monmouth (Limited Protocol Activities)
        • Contact:
          • Paul Romesser, MD
          • Phone Number: 646-888-2118
      • Montvale, New Jersey, United States, 07645
        • Recruiting
        • Memorial Sloan Kettering Bergen (Limited Protocol Activities)
        • Contact:
          • Paul Romesser, MD
          • Phone Number: 646-888-2118
    • New York
      • Commack, New York, United States, 11725
        • Recruiting
        • Memorial Sloan Kettering Suffolk - Commack (Limited Protocol Activities)
        • Contact:
          • Paul Romesser, MD
          • Phone Number: 646-888-2118
      • Harrison, New York, United States, 10604
        • Recruiting
        • Memorial Sloan Kettering Westchester (Limited Protocol Activities)
        • Contact:
          • Paul Romesser, MD
          • Phone Number: 646-888-2118
      • New York, New York, United States, 10065
        • Recruiting
        • Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (All Protocol Activities)
        • Contact:
          • Paul Romesser, MD
          • Phone Number: 646-888-2118
      • Rockville Centre, New York, United States, 11553
        • Recruiting
        • Memorial Sloan Kettering Nassau (Limited Protocol Activities)
        • Contact:
          • Paul Romesser, MD
          • Phone Number: 646-888-2118

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Adult
  • Older Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • 18 years of age or older on day of signing informed consent.
  • Have a histologically confirmed diagnosis of invasive adenocarcinoma of the rectum with no known mismatch repair deficiency or Her2 amplification.

  • Eligible for and plan to initiate standard-of-care therapy with any of the following regimens:

    • Induction fluoropyrimidine (capecitabine [preferred] or 5-FU) based chemoradiation
    • With plan for consolidative CAPEOX, FOLFOX, or FOLIRINOX
  • Woman with childbearing potential who are negative for pregnancy test (urine or blood) and who agree to use an effective contraceptive method. A woman of childbearing potential is defined as one who is biologically capable of becoming pregnant. Reliable contraception should be used from the time of screening and must be continued throughout the duration of treatment as per standard of care.

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Patients with a prior or concurrent malignancy whose natural history or treatment has the potential to interfere with the safety or efficacy assessment of the investigational regimen.
  • Patients with prior external beam radiation therapy to the pelvis or brachytherapy seed implantation of the prostate.
  • Patients who are pregnant or breastfeeding.
  • Men or women not using effective contraception.
  • Patients with a contraindication to MR imaging.
  • Patients on blood thinners prohibiting endoluminal tumor biopsies.

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Diagnostic
  • Allocation: N/A
  • Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Participants with Rectal Cancer
Participants will be diagnosed with rectal cancer and will be undergoing standard-of-care neoadjuvant therapy.
Diagnostic test: Endoscopy
Standard of care endoscopy

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Clinical response
Time Frame: Up to 3 years
To define endoscopic (clinical) response to neoadjuvant therapy at the following time points using the MSK regression schema
Up to 3 years

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Paul Romesser, MD, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

Helpful Links

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

October 9, 2024

Primary Completion (Estimated)

October 9, 2027

Study Completion (Estimated)

October 9, 2027

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

October 9, 2024

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

October 9, 2024

First Posted (Actual)

October 15, 2024

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

June 2, 2026

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

June 1, 2026

Last Verified

May 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 24-238

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

YES

IPD Plan Description

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center supports the international committee of medical journal editors (ICMJE) and the ethical obligation of responsible sharing of data from clinical trials. The protocol summary, a statistical summary, and informed consent form will be made available on clinicaltrials.gov when required as a condition of Federal awards, other agreements supporting the research and/or as otherwise required. Requests for deidentified individual participant data can be made beginning 12 months after publication and for up to 36 months post publication. Deidentified individual participant data reported in the manuscript will be shared under the terms of a Data Use Agreement and may only be used for approved proposals. Requests may be made to: crdatashare@mskcc.org.

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

Subscribe