Does lymph node dissection improve the prognosis of patients with colorectal cancer?

Abstract

The number of lymph nodes (LNs) dissected during surgery has become an interesting topic. Simple intuition always leads us to believe that dissecting more LNs will result in more accurate pathological staging and assurance of surgical quality. However, when the number of LNs dissected reaches a certain threshold, the patient's prognosis does not continue to improve as the number of dissected nodes increases. Instead, an increase in the number of dissected LNs may be accompanied by a higher incidence of complications. Currently, there are only less than 40% of colorectal cancer patients undergoing adequate LN evaluation. Therefore, obtaining a sufficient number of LNs in clinical practice is extremely challenging. How to further address the insufficiency of LN dissection due to various reasons, which results in concerns of surgeons about patient prognosis, is currently a critical focus.