highly significantP = 0.007
By combining treatment groups, survival analysis according to pathologic response (pCR n = 68; RD n = 88) revealed a highly significant association between pCR and D-DFS, with 4-year D-DFS 93.6% vs 70.9% for pCR vs no-pCR, respectively (HR = 0.26, 95% CI 0.10–0.69, P = 0.007), as shown in Fig. 3 .