Abstract
BackgroundThe American Joint Committee on Cancer 8th classification states that colorectal cancer (CRC) is classified as N1c stage when regional lymph nodes (LNs) are negative and tumor deposits (TDs) are positive. However, how to classify TDs when regional LNs are positive remains unclear. The current study aimed to investigate the possibility of combining positive LNs and positive TDs to develop a modified pathological N (mpN) stage for CRC.MethodsWe retrospectively analyzed 9,198 patients with stage III CRC from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results program who underwent surgery (6,440 in the training cohort and 2,758 the validation cohort). The combination of positive LNs and TD status was defined as mpN stage. Overall survival (OS) according to mpN and pathological N (pN) stages was analyzed by the Kaplan–Meier method. The area under the curves (AUCs) and Akaike’s information criterion (AIC) were applied to assess the predictive discrimination abilities and goodness-of-fit of the model. The clinical benefits were measured using decision curve analyses. The validation cohort was used to validate the results.ResultsAUC analysis showed that the prognostic discrimination of mpN stage (AUC = 0.628, 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.616–0.640) was better than that of pN stage (AUC = 0.618, 95% CI, 0.606–0.630, p = 0.006) for OS. The AIC demonstrated that mpN stage (AIC = 30,217) also showed superior model-fitting compared with pN stage (AIC = 30,257) and decision curve analyses revealed that mpN stage had better clinical benefits than pN stage. Similar results were found in the validation cohort.ConclusionsAmong patients with CRC and LN metastasis, mpN stage might be superior to pN stage for assessing prognosis and survival, suggesting that TD status should be included in the pN stage.
Highlights
Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most common malignancy and third-leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States [1]
The latest American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) 8th TNM classification stipulates that the number of Tumor deposits (TDs) should be recorded, it remains unclear how TDs should be classified, which could affect the accuracy of CRC staging
We evaluated the clinical usefulness of the pathological N (pN) and modified pathological N (mpN) stages in the training and validation cohorts by decision curve analyses
Summary
Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most common malignancy and third-leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States [1]. The American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) tumor-node-metastasis (TNM) classification has been the most important determinant of prognosis and plays a vital role in the management and treatment of patients with CRC. In the absence of regional LN metastasis, the AJCC 7th TNM classification of CRC classified any pathological T stage with positive TDs as N1c stage. This remained unchanged until the current classification [4, 5]. The American Joint Committee on Cancer 8th classification states that colorectal cancer (CRC) is classified as N1c stage when regional lymph nodes (LNs) are negative and tumor deposits (TDs) are positive. The current study aimed to investigate the possibility of combining positive LNs and positive TDs to develop a modified pathological N (mpN) stage for CRC
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