Total Lymphadenectomy and Nodes-Based Prognostic Factors in Surgical Intervention for Esophageal Adenocarcinoma

Abstract

Background To evaluate prognostic factors based on the number of resected lymph nodes, we considered 202 patients who underwent radical resection and "total lymphadenectomy" for esophageal adenocarcinoma according to a prospective protocol. Methods Fifty-eight tumors surrounded by Barrett's epithelium underwent esophagectomy and esophagogastrostomy, and 144 tumors without Barrett's epithelium underwent esophageal resection at the azygos vein level, total gastrectomy, and Roux-en-Y esophagojejunostomy. All nodes and fat tissue were resected at the following stations: chest 4L and R3, R4, R7, R8, and R9 (TNM seventh edition) and abdomen 1-12 according to the Japanese Classification of Gastric Carcinoma (1998). The nodes were counted, excluding fragments. The correlations between the number of nodes yielded and the ratio of the metastatic lymph nodes/lymph nodes yielded with pT stage, grading measurements, and cancer-specific survival (CSS) were calculated. Results A total of 6,270 nodes were yielded (interquartile range per patient, 22-38; minimum, 4 nodes; maximum, 61 nodes). In 3 of 21 (14%) stage pT1 cases, less than 10 nodes were counted, in 2 of 27 (8%) stage pT2 cases, less than 20 were counted, and in 73 of 154 (47%) stage pT3-4 cases, less than 30 nodes were counted. The lymph node yield (LNY) and T stage were not correlated (r = 0.048; p = 0.5). The metastatic lymph nodes to lymph nodes yielded ratio was correlated with pT stage (r = 0.272; p = 0.0001), and G (r = 0.385; p = 0.0001). CSS positively correlated with pT stage (p = 0.02), G (p = 0.001), and metastatic lymph nodes/lymph nodes yielded ratio (p = 0.01) (multivariate analysis). Conclusions The total number of lymph nodes to be removed in total and within each T stage indicated as thresholds could not be reached in up to 38.6% of patients. The metastatic lymph nodes/lymph nodes yield ratio not the total LNY, did correlate with cancer-specific survival.