Lymphadenectomy in gastrointestinal cancer surgery

Extended lymph node dissection is an important part of the surgical treatment for cancer of the esophagus, stomach, colon and rectum. With an appropriate lymphadenectomy a more precise tumour-staging, an increase in resectability, a rise of the rate of R0-resections, further a decrease in local tumour recurrences and an improvement of prognosis can be achieved.