Rectal Reconstruction in Treating Patients Who Are Undergoing Surgery for Rectal Cancer

This is a randomized, multicenter study. Patients are stratified according to participating center, gender, distance of the distal tumor margin from the dentate line (\> 5 cm vs ≤ 5 cm), age (\< 70 vs ≥ 70), neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (yes vs no), and distant metastasis (M0 vs M1). Patients are randomized to 1 of 3 treatment arms.