Clinical significance and characteristics of recurrent laryngeal nerve lymph node metastasis of thoracic esophageal cancer

Abstract

Objective To investigate the clinical significance and characteristics of recurrent laryngeal nerve lymph node metastasis of thoracic esophageal cancer.Methods One hundred and twenty-four patients who had undergone thoracic esophageal resection with recurrent laryngeal nerve lymph node dissection in our hospital from March 2007 to February 2010.All clinical data were retrospectively analysed.Results Recurrent laryngeal nerve lymph node metastasis was found in 34 of 124 cases,with the metastatic rate of 27.41% (34/124).The left recurrent laryngeal nerve lymph node metastasis was 16.13% and the right was 8.06% .The recurrent laryngeal nerve lymph node metastasis was found in 9 patients with the upper segment esophageal cancer,20 with middle third esophageal cancer and 5 with lower segment esophageal cancer,6 patients with T2 disease had recurrent laryngeal nerve lymph node metastasis,while 27 with,T3 disease.Also there were 4,13,17 cases with metastasis in well-differentiated,moderately differentiated,poorly differentiated respectively.Poorly differentiated esophageal carcinoma was more susceptible to recurrent laryngeal lymph node metastasis than well-differentiated and moderately differentiated esophageal carcinoma.Recurrent laryngeal nerve injury was found in 11 cases,7 cases of them recovered.Conclusion Nearly 1/3 of patients with esophageal carcinoma have recurrent laryngeal nerve lymph node metastasis,especially for tumor located in the upper third esophagus,poor differentiation or deep invasion (T2 or more) of esophageal carcinoma were more susceptible to recurrent laryngeal nerve lymph node metastasis. Key words: Esophageal neoplasms; Neoplasm matastasis; Lymph node; Recurrent laryngeal nerve