Attention to nerve identification in rectal cancer surgery began in Japan in the
1970s, but it was an American surgeon [1, 2] between the 1970s and 1980s
who proposed a combination of the nerve-sparing principle with the TME
technique. The result was the preservation of urogenital function in 90% of
the patients treated, without affecting the oncological outcome. Subsequently,
the effectiveness, implementation and safety of the technique were confirmed
by Moriya’s group [3], and the long-term functional results were documented
by the famous Dutch TME trial.
