Locally advanced rectal cancer with a pelvic kidney complicating adjuvant radiation therapy.

The simultaneous occurrence of colorectal malignancy with pelvic kidney is unusual. We report a case of locally advanced rectal cancer stage III disease, T3N2M0, with a pelvic kidney complicating adjuvant radiation therapy. We recommend preoperative evaluation of the pelvic kidney to allow for its protection by translocation or heterotopic autologous transplantation. Occasionally a nephrectomy may be necessary. Otherwise extended lymph node dissection is not performed; hence, adequate treatment of the primary rectal cancer is compromised. The sequela of inadequate surgical excision and suboptimal radiation therapy is early relapse.