RESUMEN
Background and purpose:At present, the relationship between tumor length and prognosis of esophageal carcinoma patients has been a controversial topic, and there have been few studies describing the effect of tumor length on clinicopathology and prognosis of node-negative esophageal carcinoma patients. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of the tumor length on clinicopathology and prognosis of node-negative esophageal carcinoma patients.Methods:The clinicopathological characteristics and survival time of 686 node-negative esophageal carcinoma patients, conifrmed by surgical pathology specimens in the First Afifliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University from Jan. 2008 to Dec. 2010, were retrospectively analyzed. The optimal cut-off value was determined by decision tree model. Univariate and multivariate methods were used to analyze the prognostic factors of node-negative esophageal carcinoma patients.Results:In decision tree analysis, esophageal tumor length was correlated with an increasing hazard ratio for death with a cut-off value at 3 cm. No signiifcant differences were found in gender, onset age, lesion site and pathological type between 2 groups which were patients with tumor length≤3 cm and tumor length >3 cm (P>0.05). The only 1 difference between 2 groups was T stage (P3 cm were 95.7%, 84.4%, 76.1% and 88.3%, 57.8%, 46.5% respectively, and the difference was statistically signiifcant (P3 cm as T3. Tumor length is an important prognostic factor for esophageal carcinoma patients without lymphatic metastasis.