Retrospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2018. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jul 14, 2018; 24(26): 2886-2892
Published online Jul 14, 2018. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v24.i26.2886
Impact of the number of examined lymph nodes on outcomes in patients with lymph node-negative gallbladder carcinoma
Dong-Xu Fan, Rong-Wei Xu, Yong-Cheng Li, Bing-Qing Zhao, Ming-Yu Sun
Dong-Xu Fan, Department of Vascular surgery, First Affiliated Hospital of Jiamusi University, Jiamusi 154002, Heilongjiang Province, China
Rong-Wei Xu, Department of Vascular Surgery, Shandong Provincial Qianfoshan Hospital, Shandong University, Jinan 250014, Shandong Province, China
Yong-Cheng Li, Department of Medical Oncology, Xuzhou Central Hospital, The Affiliated Xuzhou Hospital of Medical College of Southeast University, Xuzhou 221009, Jiangsu Province, China
Bing-Qing Zhao, Department of Surgery, Tianjin Second People’s Hospital, Tianjin 300192, China
Ming-Yu Sun, Department of Breast Surgery, Xuzhou Central Hospital, The Affiliated Xuzhou Hospital of Medical College of Southeast University, Xuzhou 221009, Jiangsu Province, China
Author contributions: Fan DX and Sun MY designed the research and critically revised the manuscript for important intellectual content; all authors performed the research, analyzed the data, and wrote the paper.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All authors declare no competing financial interests.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Ming-Yu Sun, MD, Doctor, Department of Breast Surgery, Xuzhou Central Hospital, The Affiliated Xuzhou Hospital of Medical College of Southeast University, No.199 South Jiefang Road, Xuzhou 221009, Jiangsu Province, China. 645396517@qq.com
Telephone: +86-18012018103
Received: March 19, 2018
Peer-review started: March 20, 2018
First decision: April 24, 2018
Revised: May 2, 2018
Accepted: June 2, 2018
Article in press: June 2, 2018
Published online: July 14, 2018
Abstract
AIM

To determine whether the number of examined lymph nodes (LNs) is correlated with the overall survival of gallbladder carcinoma (GBC) patients.

METHODS

Patients were collected from the Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results database (2004-2013) and categorized by the number of LNs into six groups: 1 LN, 2 LNs, 3 LNs, 4 LNs, 5 LNs, and ≥ 6 LNs. Survival curves for overall survival were plotted with a Kaplan-Meier analysis. The log-rank test was used for univariate comparisons.

RESULTS

In a cohort of 893 patients, the median number of examined LNs was two for the entire cohort. The survival for the 1 LN group was significantly poorer than those of the stage I and II disease groups and for the entire cohort. By dichotomizing the number of LNs from 1 to 6, we found that the minimum number of LNs that should be examined was four for stage I, four or five for stage II, and six for stage IIIA disease. Therefore, for the entire cohort, the number of examined LNs should be at least six, which is exactly consistent with the American Joint Committee on Cancer criteria.

CONCLUSION

The examination of higher numbers of LNs is associated with improved survival after resection surgery for N0 GBC. The guidelines for GBC surgery, which recommend that six LNs be examined at least, are statistically valid and should be applied in clinical practice widely.

Keywords: Gallbladder carcinoma, Lymph node, N0 stage, Prognostic factor

Core tip: Six lymph nodes were recommended as the minimum number of examination in the 8th edition American Joint Committee on Cancer tumor-node-metastasis criteria for gallbladder carcinoma, but the rationality has not been evaluated yet. Thus, we aimed to explore the optimal lymph node number using the Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results database.