Abstract
The clinicopathologic findings and the prognosis of 154 patients without regional lymph nodes metastasis or distant metastasis (n(-) group) were compared with those in 134 patients with regional lymph nodes metastasis and without distant metastasis (n(+) group). The mean age of the n(-) group was significantly younger than that of the n(+) group (p<0.05) and there was no significant sexual preponderance. The proportion of the cases without lymphatic vessel invasion in the n(-) group was significantly higher than in the n(+) group (p<0.01). The proportion of the cases without venous invasion was significantly higher in the n(-) group than in the n(+) group (p<0.05). There was no difference in cumulative survival rate of patients in the n(-) group in respect to the background factors such as sex, tumor site, and venous invasion. However, the survival rate of patients whose cancer invasion was limited within the mucosa (m), submucosa (sm) and musclar propria (pm) was significantly better than that of patients who had subserosal or subadventitial penetration (ss(a1)), serosal or adventitial penetration (s(a2)) and cancer invasion adjacent organs (si(ai)) (p<0.05). The survival rate of patients with lymphatic vessel invasion was significantly higher than that of patients without lymphatic vessel invasion (p<0.05).
That the poor prognostic factors in n(-) colorectal cancer patients are cancer penetration to/beyond ss(a1), or positive lymphatic vessel invasion.
