[An evaluation of prognostic factors in patients with esophageal carcinoma]

We evaluated the relationship between clinicopathological findings and the prognosis of 101 patients who underwent esophagectomy for primary esophageal cancers in our institution, from 1980 to 1991, and investigated the prognostic factors of esophageal carcinoma. There were significant relationships between the prognosis and the depth of cancer invasion (P < 0.05), lymph nodes involvement (P < 0.05), lymphatic invasion (P < 0.01), venous invasion (P < 0.05) and histological stages (P < 0.01). The stages were decided by the depth of invasion and the lymph nodes metastasis. There were also no positive relationships between the prognosis and lymphatic and venous invasion in the patients groups of both n (-) and n3 + 4. Therefore, we concluded that the most important prognostic factors were the depth of cancer invasion (invasion into the neighboring structures) and lymph nodes involvement. We suggest that lymphatic and venous invasion may play an important part in the prognosis of the patients in the n1 + 2 positive group.