The Impact of the Lymph Node Ratio is Greater than Traditional Lymph Node Status in Stage III Colorectal Cancer Patients

The purpose of this study was to clarify the prognostic factors in patients with peritoneal carcinomatosis from colorectal origin, especially focusing on lymph node status. Between 1998 and 2007, 126 patients who underwent surgical treatment for primary colorectal cancer with peritoneal carcinomatosis were retrospectively assessed concerning prognostic factors. To estimate survival, we formulated a scoring system by numbers of independent poor prognostic factors. According to a multivariate analysis, extent of peritoneal carcinomatosis (hazard ratio, 1.93; 95% confidence interval, 1.19-3.13; P = 0.008) and lymph node ratio (hazard ratio, 1.87; 95% confidence interval, 1.05-3.33; P = 0.034) were found to be independent poor prognostic factors for survival. Furthermore, we demonstrated that score formulated by the number of these criteria was highly predictive of survival ( P < 0.001). The 5-year survival rate for patients with score 0 (having no criteria), score 1 (having one criterion), and score 2 (having two criteria) were 25.1 per cent, 6.2 per cent, and 0 per cent, respectively. Lymph node ratio is an important prognostic factor in addition to the extent of peritoneal carcinomatosis after resection of primary colorectal carcinoma. Patients without these criteria have a favorable outcome, and therefore should be considered for further aggressive surgery and intraperitoneal chemotherapy.

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Metastatic lymph node ratio as better prognostic tool than TNM system in colorectal cancer.

Journal of Clinical Oncology ◽

10.1200/jco.2020.38.15_suppl.e16128 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 38 (15_suppl) ◽

pp. e16128-e16128

Author(s):

Filipa Macedo ◽

Hugo Sequeira ◽

Katia Ladeira ◽

Nuno Bonito ◽

Charlene Viana ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Colorectal Cancer ◽

Lymph Node ◽

Lymph Nodes ◽

Lymph Node Ratio ◽

Venous Invasion ◽

Lymph Node Status ◽

Tnm System ◽

Metastatic Lymph ◽

Node Ratio ◽

The Impact

e16128 Background: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third leading cause of cancer death in the world. Lymph node metastasis is an important prognostic factor; however, the minimum number of lymph nodes that should be evaluated for adequately categorizing lymph node status is still a controversial theme. The TNM staging system has limitations in defining the pN category. The lymph node ratio (LNR) may be a better prognostic indicator. Objectives: Evaluate the impact on the prognosis of patients operated for CRC, comparing the LNR with the pN category of TNM system. Methods: We studied 1065 patients treated at a General Surgery Department from 01/01/2000 to 08/31/2012. The LNR was separated into 5 categories based on three previously calculated cut-off values: LNR0 (0), LNR1 (0.01-0.17), LNR2 (0.18- 0.41), LNR3 (0.42-0.69) and LNR4 (≥0.70). Results: The results of the univariate analysis indicated significant differences in survival according to age (p < 0.001), tumor size (p < 0.001), serosal invasion (p < 0.001), histological type (p = 0.002), differentiation (p < 0.001), pT (p < 0.001), pN (p < 0.001), LNR (p < 0.001), M (p = 0.001), TNM stage (p < 0.001), venous invasion (p < 0.001). Multivariate analysis confirmed the LRN, pN, age, venous invasion and pT as independent prognostic factors. The survival analysis showed significant differences between the categories of pN (p < .001) and LNR (p < .001). Spearman correlation analysis showed a significant correlation between the total number of dissected lymph nodes and the number of metastatic lymph nodes (rs = 0.167, p < 0.001). The total number of dissected lymph nodes is not significantly correlated with LNR (rs = -0.019, p = 0.550). Conclusions: In this study LNR seems to demonstrate a superior prognostic value when compared to the pN categories, in part due to its greater independence regarding the extent of lymphadenectomy.

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