Reply to: EVOCAPE 2 study: Lack of prognostic significance of conventional peritoneal cytology in colorectal and gastric cancer?

Abstract

We appreciate the interest that Braam et al. have paid to the results of our study EVOCAPE 2. 1 Cotte E. Peyrat P. Piaton E. et al. Lack of prognostic significance of conventional peritoneal cytology in colorectal and gastric cancers: results of EVOCAPE 2 multicentre prospective study. Eur J Surg Oncol. 2013; 39: 707-714 Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (37) Google Scholar They suggest that the conclusions concerning the prognostic significance of intraperitoneal free cancer cells (IPCC), especially for the development of PC in gastric cancer should be interpreted with caution. We totally agree with them. The main message of our study was that conventional cytology is probably not useful for colorectal and gastric cancers because of its low rate of positivity. It does not bring any additional information in term of recurrence risk or survival than usual prognostic factors (TNM, differentiation…). Despite a standardized procedure for cytology and a panel of 7 cytopathologists for interpretation, the prevalence of IPCC remained low in our study. EVOCAPE 2 study: Lack of prognostic significance of conventional peritoneal cytology in colorectal and gastric cancer?European Journal of Surgical OncologyVol. 39Issue 11PreviewWith great interest we read the article by Cotte et al.1 concerning the prognostic significance of peritoneal cytology in colorectal and gastric cancer. The authors performed a prospective multicentre analysis on the prognostic significance of intraperitoneal free cancer cells (IPCC) in 1364 patients with various gastrointestinal malignancies. The authors concluded that IPCC was not an independent prognostic factor and did not add any additional prognostic information to known tumour related prognostic factors. Full-Text PDF