Surgical specimen extraction via a prophylactic ileostomy procedure: A minimally invasive technique for laparoscopic rectal cancer surgery

Table 3 Pathological outcomes n (%)

Variable	Experimental group (n = 155)	Control group (n = 176)	P value
Tumor size (cm; mean ± SD)	4.0 ± 0.8	4.1 ± 0.8	0.205
Proximal resection margin (cm; mean ± SD)	16.2 ± 7.1	15.4 ± 7.3	0.309
Distal resection margin (cm; mean ± SD)	2.2 ± 0.4	2.2 ± 0.4	0.477
No. of lymph nodes harvested (mean ± SD)	22.8 ± 5.3	21.7 ± 5.0	0.375
No. of patients with lymph nodes harvested < 12	10 (6.5)	13 (7.4)	0.830
Differentiation degree			0.963
Good	45 (29.0)	50 (28.4)
Moderate	62 (40.0)	73 (41.5)
Poor	48 (31.0)	53 (30.1)
Pathological pattern			0.785
Canalicular adenocarcinoma	108 (69.7)	125 (71.0)
Mucinous adenocarcinoma	25 (16.1)	22 (12.5)
Papillary adenocarcinoma	12 (7.7)	16 (9.1)
Signet-ring carcinoma	10 (6.5)	13 (7.4)
Nerve invasion	30 (19.4)	37 (21.0)	0.706
Vessel invasion	26 (16.8)	30 (17.0)	0.948
Positive distal margin	0 (0)	0 (0)	N/A
Positive CRM	0 (0)	0 (0)	N/A
pTNM stage			0.807
I	38 (24.5)	45 (25.6)
II	61 (39.4)	70 (39.8)
III	44 (28.4)	52 (29.5)
IV	12 (7.7)	9 (5.1)

SD: Standard deviation; CRM: Circumferential resection margin; pTNM: Pathological tumor-node-metastasis; N/A: Not applicable.