Examined lymph node count for gastric cancer patients after curative surgery

Table 1 Influencing factors of examined lymph node count after curative gastrectomy

Classifications	Factors	Specific
Lymph node harvesting	Individual and tumor factors	Immune status (active/inhibited)[10], sex (female/male)[11], age (young/elderly)[11], body mass index (emaciation/obesity)[12], disease stage (early/advanced)[13], etc
	Intraoperative dissection factors	Extent of lymph node dissection (D1/D2)[14], scope of gastrectomy (total/subtotal/partial)[14], operation mode (laparoscopic/open)[15-16], qualification of the surgeons[17-19], etc
Examination detail	Postoperative sorting factors	Omission of small lymph nodes[21-22], persons (surgeons/pathologists)[23-24], lymph node sorting methods (fine/regional)[55-56], etc
	Pathological examination factors	Special metastasis (extranodal soft tissue/skip metastasis)[25-28], fat clearance technology (alcohol/coniferous oil/formaldehyde)[30-35], dye marker (methylene blue, nanocarbon)[36-38], etc