Figure 1.

Flow chart of patient selection. ¹ One patient had a missing cTNM status and was excluded. ² Patients that were too ill to be treated (n = 4), died before initiating treatment (n = 2), carcinoma in situ (n = 2), another metastatic tumour type simultaneously (n = 2), sigmoidal cancer (n = 1), missing information about treatment (n = 1), M1 according to pathology report (n = 1), or no tumour could be seen on MRI (n = 1). Abbreviations: Rectal cancer, RC; short-course radiotherapy, scRT; long-course radiotherapy, lcRT; chemotherapy, CT; chemoradiotherapy, CRT; transanal endoscopic microsurgery, TEM; watch-and-wait strategy, W&W.