ABSTRACT
Objective@#To evaluate the prognostic value of lymph node metastasis-related indexes in patients with stage N2b colorectal cancer.@*Methods@#Clinicopathologic data of 245 patients with stage N2b colorectal cancer who initially underwent radical operation in Cancer Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences between January 2007 and December 2012 were retrospectively analyzed. The prognostic values of several indexes, including number of positive lymph nodes, number of negative lymph nodes, lymph node ratio (LNR) and log odds of positive lymph nodes (LODDS) were analyzed.@*Results@#The 5-year overall survival rate of 245 patients with colorectal cancer was 54.0%, and the 5-year recurrence-free survival rate was 48.5%.Univariate analysis showed that perineural or blood vessel invasion, T stage, postoperative adjuvant therapy, number of positive lymph nodes, number of negative lymph nodes, LNR, and LODDS were significantly associated with the 5-year overall survival of colorectal cancer patients (P<0.05). Multivariate cox regression analysis showed that, number of positive lymph nodes, number of negative lymph nodes, LNR, LODDS were all independent prognostic factors for stage N2b colorectal cancer patients (P<0.05). The areas under the receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) curves of number of positive lymph node, number of negative lymph nodes, LNR and LODDS were 0.649, 0.667, 0.690 and 0.683, respectively, however, no statistical significance was observed between the number of negative lymph nodes (P=0.622), LNR (P=0.178) or LODDS (P=0.272) and the number of positive lymph nodes.@*Conclusion@#The number of positive lymph nodes, number of negative lymph nodes, LNR and LODDS were all independent prognostic factors for patients with stage N2b colorectal cancer.
ABSTRACT
Lymph node metastasis is one of the important factors influencing the prognosis of gastric cancer patients. Accurate and reasonable lymph node staging is greatly significant in evaluating the course of the disease, in estimating the prognosis, and in making a reasonable treatment plan. Local and international research institutions recently found that new staging methods for lymph nodes associated with the prognosis of gastric cancer (e.g., metastastic lymph nodes ratio, log odds of positive lymph nodes, negative lymph node count, and lymph node micrometastasis) can also predict the prognosis of gastric cancer patients. In this paper, the development history, current status of lymph node staging of gastric cancer, and research progress on the new staging methods for lymph nodes as-sociated with the prognosis of gastric cancer are reviewed.