Abstract
Background:
The clinical significance of metastasis in inferior mesenteric artery (IMA) lymph node in patients with left-sided colorectal cancer (LCRC) is unclear. The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of IMA lymph node metastasis (IMA-LN (+)) on the prognosis of patients with LCRC.
Methods:
A total of 292 patients with stage III LCRC and 111 patients with stage IV LCRC who underwent radical resection of the primary tumor between 2005 and 2016 were included. The clinicopathological features and prognosis, which were retrospectively obtained from medical records, were compared regarding IMA-LN (+).
Results:
IMA-LN (+) was observed in 10 patients with stage III LCRC (2.3%). Moreover. ≥4 metastatic lymph nodes (p = 0.001) and poorly differentiated type (p = 0.049) were more frequently observed in patients with IMA-LN (+) than in patients without IMA lymph node metastasis (IMA-LN (-)) in stage III; IMA-LN (+) patients had significantly worse overall survival (OS) than IMA-LN (-) patients in stage III (p = 0.015). Conversely, there was no significant difference between the OS of stage III IMA-LN (+) and stage IV patients (p = 0.192). Likewise, there was no significant difference between the OS of stage III IMA-LN (+) and stage IV patients with distant metastatic lymph nodes only (n = 12) (p = 0.294).
Conclusion:
The prognosis of IMA-LN (+) patients was worse than that of IMA-LN (-) patients in stage III LCRC; moreover, it was similar to that of patients with stage IV LCRC.
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