Defunctioning stoma before neoadjuvant treatment or resection of endoscopically obstructing rectal cancer.

"Declarations Ethics approvalThe Swedish Ethical Review Authority (dnr 2021–01416) approved this study. Informed consentInformed consent from participants was waived by the review board and was therefore not obtained, as this is a retrospective study only, with no planned intervention; moreover, some of the participants have deceased, and any attempts to approach relatives for consent was deemed to incur more harm than good. In addition, all data is presented on a group level, thus making it impossible to identify individual patients. Permission to reproduce material from other sourcesNo material from other sources was included in this study. Competing interestsThe authors declare no competing interests. Competing interests The authors declare no competing interests."

"Funding Open access funding provided by Umeå University. The research leading to these results received funding from Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, Swedish Society of Medicine."