The Relationship of Depth of Penetration and Tumor Size to the Number of

ABSTRACT

We examined the interrelationships of depth of penetration, tumor size, and the number of positive lymph nodes in Dukes'c colorectal cancer. This report contains a retrospective study of 256 cases of colorectal cancer that underwent treatment from Jan. 1985 to Dec. 1994 at the Department of Surgery, Kangbuk Samsung Hospital. The most of the patients were on the 6th decades and male to female ratio was 1.27 1. By modified Astler-Coller classification, there were stage Cl 29 cases(11.3%), C2 227 cases(88.7%). Eighty patients with colon cancer(31.4%) and 176 patients with carcinoma of the rectum(68.6%) were available for analysis. Utilizing cumulative frequency distributions of tumor size, depth of invasion and the number of positive lymph nodes, comparisons were carried out among three factors. The results indicate that there was no correlation between the longest diameter of the tumor and other two factors but the number of positive lymph node was closely related to depth of invasion. In conclusion, the number of positive lymph node and depth of invasion are very important prognostic factor. But tumor size as a single factor does not correlated with prognosis in Dukes' C colorectal cancer.