Table 4.

The sphincter-preserving procedure rate and long-term outcome.

Trial	Interval	Sphincter-preserving procedure (%)	P value	Median follow-up (months)	Local recurrence	Distant metastases	Overall survival
Moore et al. [6]	≤44 days	79.3	0.54		NA
	>44 days	83.6
Tran et al. [7]	≤8 weeks	75.0	1.0	27.7		31% versus 34% (P = 0.53)
	>8 weeks	75.0
Lim et al. [8]	2∼41 days	83.9	0.688	31	Local recurrence-free survival (P = 0.1165)		P = 0.8386
	42∼56 days	82.2
Tulchinsky et al. [9]	≤7 weeks	62.5	0.95	35	6% versus 4% (P = 0.67)	19% versus 6% (P = 0.02)
	>7 weeks	61.9		31
Habr-Gama et al. [10]	≤12 weeks	52.9	0.003	46	34% versus 30% (P = 0.75)	12% versus 12% (P = 0.999)
	>12 weeks	34.1
de Campos-Lobato et al. [11]	<8 weeks	72.3	0.86	59	10.5% versus 1.2% (P = 0.04)	17.7% versus 14.1% (P = 0.85)	85.5% versus 88.2% (P = 0.74)
	≥8 weeks	72.3
Evans et al. [12]	<6 weeks	83.3	NA		NA
	6∼8 weeks	84.4
	>8 weeks	73.3
Wolthuis et al. [13]	≤7 weeks	86.1	0.18	4.99 years	5 years free from recurrence: 73% versus 83% (P = 0.026)		5-year cancer related survival: 83% versus 91% (P = 0.046)
	>7 weeks	78.7		4.73 years
Sloothaak et al. [14]		NA	NA		NA
Jeong et al. [15]	<8 weeks	82.4	0.341	38	3 years: 7.8% versus 12.7% (P = 0.279)	3 years: 24% versus 18.9% (P = 0.427)	3 years: 90.2% versus 87.2% (P = 0.825)
	≥8 weeks	75
Fang et al. [16]	5∼6 weeks	NA	NA	32.2	3.1% versus 10.8% (P = 0.147)	31.3% versus 14.9% (P = 0.052)
	≥6 weeks
Calvo et al. [17]	<6 weeks ≥6 weeks	64 68.3	0.4	71	5-year local control: 90.4% versus 94.5% (P = 0.123)		5 years: 55.9 versus 70.4% (P = 0.014)
Zeng et al. [18]	≤7 weeks	59.5	0.335	42	3 years: 12.9% versus 4.8% (P = 0.025)	3 years: 14.4% versus 12.6% (P = 0.651)	3 years: 89.0% versus 94.5% (P = 0.651)
	>7 weeks	65.6
You et al. [19]	≤7 weeks >7 weeks	55.4 57.2	0.832	55 49	5-year DFS: 74.7% versus 66.8% (P = 0.248)		5 years: 84.4% versus 75.3% (P = 0.679)
Sirohi et al. [20]	≤60 days	62	0.357	13	Overall recurrence: 14% versus 21% (P = 0.405)
	>60 days	53

NA = data not available.