For some small rectal cancers electrofulguration can be an attractive alternative to more extensive surgical procedures. This report is a review of 49 patients who, after careful selection, were considered ideal candidates for curative fulguration in the period 1959-1982. All had rectal adenocarcinomas and were clinically staged as Dukes' A tumors. To put the results of this analysis into perspective, they are compared to the results of those patients (34) who also had early clinical stage rectal adenocarcinomas, but for a variety of reasons underwent abdominoperineal excisions (APE, 11 patients) or low-anterior resections (LAR, 23 patients) instead of fulguration. Postoperative complications after fulguration were minimal, there were no postoperative deaths, and all patients retained anal continence. After APE or LAR there were two postoperative deaths (one myocardial infarction, one ruptured iliac aneurysm); postoperative morbidity was greater. All LAR-treated patients remained continent. Of the patients at risk 55% remained disease-free after fulguration, while 77% remained disease-free after APE or LAR (P = 0.023). This is due to a higher percentage of loco-regional recurrences occurring after fulguration than after APE or LAR (31% vs 9%, respectively, P = 0.021). The percentage of patients with distant metastases in both groups are similar. It seems that electrofulguration of rectal cancers, even in strictly selected patients in a specialized institution, can lead to an unacceptably high percentage of patients with loco-regional recurrences. Nearly all local failures occurred in patients with tumors that measured more than 3 cm in diameter and/or occupied more than one-third of the rectal circumference. Salvage operations for loco-regional failure were performed in 13 patients, 5 of whom are alive with no evidence of disease. Since there seems to be a direct relation between tumor size and the chance of loco-regional recurrence and since salvage operations for local failure are not uniformly successful, electrofulguration for cure must be reserved for the very rare patient with a very small early-stage rectal cancer.