Morbidity, Mortality, and Pathologic Outcomes of Transanal Versus Laparoscopic Total Mesorectal Excision for Rectal Cancer Short-term Outcomes From a Multicenter Randomized Controlled Trial.

"The authors report no conflicts of interest."

"Supported by the Sun Yat-sen University Clinical Research 5010 Program (2016005), Science and Technology Projects in Guangzhou (202206010062), China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2021M703723), and Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation (2021A1515111011)."

"This trial of transanal versus conventional laparoscopic TME for rectal cancer (TaLaR) is a phase 3, open-labeled, multicenter, randomized, controlled, noninferiority trial conducted at 16 centers in 10 Chinese provinces from April 2016 to June 2021. The primary endpoints of this trial were 3-year disease-free survival (DFS) and 5-year overall survival (OS) after surgery. Approval was obtained from the institutional review board of each participating hospital, and all patients provided written informed consent. This trial is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT 02966483. The approved study protocol and statistical analysis plan are available in Supplemental Digital Content (SDC) (http://links.lww.com/SLA/D870)."