Nigro protocol

The Nigro protocol is a preoperative cancer treatment combining chemotherapy with 5-fluorouracil and mitomycin alongside radiation therapy for squamous cell carcinoma of the anal canal. It is named for Norman Nigro, who developed the approach in the mid-1970s, and it transformed anal cancer treatment by establishing chemoradiation, rather than surgery alone, as the standard of care; the original protocol achieved a complete response rate of about 75 percent, sparing many patients an invasive surgical procedure. Later versions of the protocol typically use higher doses of radiation than Nigro's original regimen.