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Is upper mediastinal lymphadenectomy necessary in squamous carcinoma of the lower thoracic oesophagus?
1First Department of Surgery, Kumamoto University School of Medicine, Japan.
Aim:
We examined the indication of upper mediastinal lymphadenectomy for a squamous cell carcinoma of the lower thoracic oesophagus.
Methods:
49 patients underwent a curative oesophagectomy with upper mediastinal lymphadenectomy for a squamous cell carcinoma of the lower thoracic oesophagus. Node status and clinicopathological characteristics of these patients were reviewed retrospectively.
Results:
16 (94.1%) of 17 patients with superficial tumours had no positive node in the upper mediastinum. Nine (29.0%) of 31 patients with transmural tumours had positive nodes in the upper mediastinum (P = 0.04). Ten (20.4%) of 49 patients had many positive nodes in the upper mediastinum. Of these 10 patients, 6 patients had 5 or more positive nodes in all. The 5-year survival rate for patients with 5 or more positive nodes was 7.7%, which was significantly poorer than patients with 4 or fewer positive nodes.
Conclusions:
Upper mediastinal lymphadenectomy is unnecessary in most of the superficial squamous carcinomas of the lower thoracic oesophagus.
