Abstract
Activated carbon particles are taken up by lymphatics and regional lymph nodes become black up to the para-aortic nodes, when the particles are injected into the stomach wall. Para-aortic nodes are confirmed as the terminal regional nodes of the stomach by the activated carbon particles. Para-aortic lymph node dissections were carried out by the activated carbon particle technique and it was revealed that incidence of metastasis was higher than that of N3. Para-aoritc lymph node metastasis occurred frequently in the patients with gastric cancer involving serosa. The five-year survival for the patients with Stage II and III was 71.0% for R4 lymph node dissection (para-aortic node dissection), 54.7% for R3 dissection and 54.0% for R2 dissection.
