BMC Gastroenterology (Mar 2012)

Metachronous metastasis- and survival-analysis show prognostic importance of lymphadenectomy for colon carcinomas

  • Laubert Tilman,
  • Habermann Jens K,
  • Hemmelmann Claudia,
  • Kleemann Markus,
  • Oevermann Elisabeth,
  • Bouchard Ralf,
  • Hildebrand Philipp,
  • Jungbluth Thomas,
  • Bürk Conny,
  • Esnaashari Hamed,
  • Schlöricke Erik,
  • Hoffmann Martin,
  • Ziegler Andreas,
  • Bruch Hans-Peter,
  • Roblick Uwe J

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-230X-12-24
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 12, no. 1
p. 24

Abstract

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Abstract Background Lymphadenectomy is performed to assess patient prognosis and to prevent metastasizing. Recently, it was questioned whether lymph node metastases were capable of metastasizing and therefore, if lymphadenectomy was still adequate. We evaluated whether the nodal status impacts on the occurrence of distant metastases by analyzing a highly selected cohort of colon cancer patients. Methods 1,395 patients underwent surgery exclusively for colon cancer at the University of Lübeck between 01/1993 and 12/2008. The following exclusion criteria were applied: synchronous metastasis, R1-resection, prior/synchronous second carcinoma, age Results Five-year survival rates for TM + and TM- were 21% and 73%, respectively (p Conclusions Besides a higher T-category, a positive N-stage independently implies a higher probability to develop distant metastases and correlates with poor survival. Our data thus show a prognostic relevance of lymphadenectomy which should therefore be retained until conclusive studies suggest the unimportance of lmyphadenectomy.

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