Reply to: Franssen, Ruud; Strous, Maud; Vogelaar, F Jeroen; Janssen‐Heijnen, Maryska. Can we really conclude that treatment delays are associated with poorer outcome in patients with colorectal cancer awaiting elective surgery?

Given the lack of a recent meta-analysis on this topic, we attempted to quantify the delay from diagnosis to surgical treatment in elective colorectal cancer from the available literature. The evidence base available to the authors was of poor quality as acknowledged by the ROBINS-I score which declared three papers at serious risk of bias.