Critical analysis of the literature investigating urogenital function preservation following robotic rectal cancer surgery

Table 1 Characteristics of original studies

Ref.	Country	Study design	Control group	No. of cases for urogenital outcomes	Study specifically examines urogenital outcomes
Hellan et al[34]	United States	Retrospective	No control group	39	No
Patriti et al[40]	Italy	RCT	Robot vs lap	29 rob vs 37 lap	No
Luca et al[6]	Italy	Prospective	No control group	74	Yes
Kim et al[31]	South Korea	Prospective	Robot vs lap	30 rob vs 39 lap	Yes
Park et al[39]	United States	Prospective	No control group	30	No
Leung et al[5]	Hong Kong	Prospective	No control group	33	Yes
Park et al[32]	South Korea	Retrospective	Robot vs lap	14 rob vs 15 lap	No
D'Annibale et al[33]	Italy	Retrospective	Robot vs lap	30 vs 30	No
Stănciulea et al[37]	Romania	Retrospective	No control group	78	No
Erguner et al[38]	Turkey	Prospective	Robot vs lap	27 rob vs 37 lap	No
Park et al[9]	South Korea	Retrospective	Robot vs lap	32 vs 32	Yes
Ozeki et al[18]	Japan	Prospective	Robot vs open	15 rob vs 22 open	Yes
Cho et al[35]	South Korea	Retrospective	Robot vs lap	278 vs 278	No
Alecu et al[36]	Romania	Retrospective	No control group	79	No
Morelli et al[30]	Italy	Retrospective	Robot vs lap	30 vs 30	Yes

These include: (1) the studies country of origin; (2) the study design (prospective, retrospective or randomised control trial); (3) the control group (if present) used to compare with the robotic rectal surgery, this was either laparoscopic or open rectal surgery cases; (4) the number of cases included in each study whose urogenital outcomes were evaluated; and (5) whether the study was specifically designed to investigate the urogenital outcomes of robotic surgery or not. RCT: Randomised control trial; Robot: Robotic; lap: Laparoscopic.