Identification of risk factors for lymph node metastasis of colorectal cancer

Although lymph node metastasis is widely considered to be the potent prognostic factor in colorectal cancer patients, the clinical risk factors for lymph node metastasis in these patients have been scarcely analyzed.

The clinical records of 2125 patients who underwent colonoscopy and were diagnosed with colorectal cancer were reviewed.

Multivariate analysis revealed that an increase in T stage (odds ratio (OR); 2.54, 95% confidence interval (CI) 2.17-2.98), and tumors with high grade pathology (OR; 1.63, 95% CI 1.10-2.41) were identified as the independent predictive factors for the presence of lymph node metastasis. On the other hand, the presence of synchronous adenomas (OR; 0.78, 95% CI 0.65-0.95) was a predictor for being free of lymph node metastasis. Stratification of the risk according to age and gender revealed that a tumor located in the right colon indicated significant risk for patients less than 50 years old (OR; 2.23, 95% CI 1.01-4.95), whereas tumors with high grade pathology indicated a significant risk only in female patients (OR; 1.74, 95% CI 1.01-3.00).

The significant risk factors for lymph node metastasis were elucidated, and may facilitate surgeons in deciding the best surgical procedure to implement and pathologists in treating resected specimens.