Lymph node metastasis is strongly associated with lung metastasis as the first recurrence site in colorectal cancer
Yujin Kato1, Kohei Shigeta1, Koji Okabayashi1
1Department of Surgery, School of Medicine, Keio University, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, Japan.
Background:
The lymphatic system is known to be the primary pathway of metastasis for colorectal cancer. However, beyond regional lymph node metastases, little is known about the pathway of lymphatic metastases and the differences in the recurrence site risk. The aim of this study was to clarify the relationship between lymph node metastasis and the first recurrence site in colorectal cancer.
Methods:
Patients with colorectal cancer who underwent curative resection in our institution between January 2003 and December 2016 were included in this analysis. The relationship between the first recurrence site and clinicopathological factors was analyzed by the Cox regression model and competing risk regression model.
Results:
In total, 1,249 patients with colorectal cancer were included in this analysis. We found that the stages of lymph node metastases (N0 vs N1: P = .008, N0 vs N2a: P < .001, N0 vs N2b: P < .001) were significantly associated with lung metastasis in the multivariate analysis. Furthermore, in the competing risk analysis, the stages of lymph node metastases were significantly correlated with lung metastasis (N0 vs N1: P = .002, N0 vs N2a: P < .001, N0 vs N2b: P < .001) but were not correlated with other recurrence sites.
Conclusion:
The severity of lymph node involvement had a strong correlation with lung metastases in patients with colorectal cancer.
Related Concept Videos
02:30Metastasis
Epithelial-to-Mesenchymal Transition
The epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition or EMT is a developmental process commonly observed in wound healing, embryogenesis, and cancer metastasis. EMT is induced by transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-β) or receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK) ligands, which further...
02:39lncRNA - Long Non-coding RNAs