Overall Survival (OS) for laparoscopic total mesorectal excision (TME) with Denonvilliers’ fascia preservation (Exp-group) vs laparoscopic TME with Denonvilliers’ fascia resection (Con-group) at 3 years after surgery.
Kaplan–Meier method was used to estimate survival probabilities over time and the log-rank test was applied to compare survival curves between two groups. We set truncation at 36 months for restricted mean survival time (RMST). The RMST in the Exp-group was 35.50 months (95% CI, 35.05–35.94 months). Correspondingly, the restricted mean times lost (RMTL) was 0.50 months (95% CI, 0.06–0.95 months). In contrast, the RMST was 34.95 months (95% CI, 34.21–35.69 months) and the RMTL was 1.05 months (95% CI, 0.32–1.79 months) in the Con-group. The RMST ratio for L-DVF-P to L-DVF-R was 1.02 (95% CI, 0.99–1.04), suggesting that the Exp-group had a mean survival time of 2% more than that of the Con-group (The disease-free survival (DFS) was presented in Fig. 