The prognostic value of the number of negative lymph nodes in esophageal carcinoma without lymphatic metastasis after esophagectomy / 中华胸心血管外科杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate the correlation between the number of resected lymph nodes(LNs) and the prognosis of patients with node-negative esophageal carcinoma.Methods A retrospective review of 429 patients receiving esophagectomy with morden two-field lymphadenectomy for cancer between January 1998 and December 2008 was performed.All patients were proved without lymph node involvement histopathologically.The prognostic impact of the number of negative LNs and the clinicopathologic factors were analyzed.Results The overall median survival time was 63.0 months,and the 1-,3-,and 5-year overall survival rates were 78.5％,64.0％ and 51.2％,respectively.Survival analysis confirmed that the number of negative LNs and the depth of tumor invasion were showed to be independent prognostic factors.Patients with a high number of negative LNs had better overall survival than patients with a low number of negative LNs(P ＜ 0.05).The patients had better long-term survival outcomes with dissected LNs counts of more than 15 for cases with pT1 tumor(P ＜ 0.05),and more than 20 for cases with pT2-3 tumor(P ＜ 0.05).Conclusion The number of negative lymph nodes is an independent prognostic predicting factor for node-negative esophageal carcinoma.Sufficient dissection of LNs is recommended to improve the survival of patients with node-negative esophageal carcinoma.