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

Table 2 Further characteristics of original studies

Ref.	Fully or hybrid robotic procedure	Functional scores applied	Follow up in months	No. of surgeons performing cases	SIGN score
Hellan et al[34]	Hybrid	No	Median f/u 13 mo	Not stated	+
Patriti et al[40]	Hybrid	No	Mean f/u 12 mo	Not stated	+
Luca et al[6]	Fully	Yes	1, 6, 12	2 surgeons	++
Kim et al[31]	Hybrid	Yes	1, 3, 6, 12	1 surgeon	++
Park et al[39]	Reverse hybrid	No	Not stated	Not stated	+
Leung et al[5]	Mixture	Yes	3	Not stated	++
Park et al[32]	Hybrid	Yes	3, 6, 12	1 surgeon	++
D'Annibale et al[33]	Fully	Yes	1, 12	1 surgeon	++
Stănciulea et al[37]	93% fully	Yes	Once b/n 6 and 12 mo	3 surgeons	+
Erguner et al[38]	Mixture	No	Not stated	Not stated	+
Park et al[9]	Hybrid	Yes	3, 6, 12	1 surgeon	++
Ozeki et al[18]	Fully	Yes	3, 6, 12	2 for robot cases	++
Cho et al[35]	Fully	No	1	3 surgeons did 97.1% cases	++
Alecu et al[36]	Hybrid	Yes	Not stated	Not stated	+
Morelli et al[30]	Not stated	Yes	1, 6, 12	1 surgeon	++

These include: (1) whether the surgeons used the hybrid or robotic approach for their study; (2) whether urogenital function was assessed by means of functional scores or not; (3) the follow up period during which data for urogenital outcomes was collected; (4) the number of surgeons performing the cases in each study; and (5) the studies SIGN score. f/u: Follow up; SIGN: Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network.