Lymph Node Retrieval During Esophagectomy With and Without Neoadjuvant Chemoradiotherapy: Prognostic and Therapeutic Impact on Survival

It has recently been reported that the number of lymph nodes resected during esophagectomy is related to long-term survival, leading to recommendations for the proper extent of nodal dissection.  The current study used data from the CROSS trial to investigate this relationship in groups of esophagectomy patients with and without induction chemoradiotherapy.  The median number of resected nodes in those without and with induction therapy was 18 and 14.  Involved nodes had a much greater negative impact on survival in those undergoing induction therapy than in those who had surgery alone.  The total number of resected nodes was related to survival in the surgery only group, but had no relationship to survival in the multimodality group.