Abstract:
Objective To assess clinicopathologic features of patients with tumor deposits (TDs) in colorectal cancer (CRC) and evaluate the rationality of TD staging in the 8th edition of the TNM classification (TNM 8th edition).
Methods Overall, 517 patients with CRC who were surgically treated from August 2013 to December 2017 were retrospectively examined. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed to identify correlations between clinicopathological features and TD, and survival analysis was performed to compare patients' clinicopathological status and different number of TDs. The effectiveness of the TD staging system using the TNM 8th edition was validated by prognostic analysis.
Results The tumor stage and degree of differentiation were independent risk factors for the status and number of TDs, respectively. Survival analysis indicated that patients with TD exhibited a significantly poorer prognosis than those without TD (P < 0.001). The prognosis of patients with different numbers of TDs significantly worsened as the number of TDs increased (all P < 0.05); however, there was no significant difference between TD=2 and TD=3 (P=0.186). With respect to the cutoff value for the number of TDs, TD was divided into three groups (TD=1, TD=2-3, and TD ≥ 4), each representing a significant difference in prognosis. Patients in the T3-4aN1a/1b category experienced a worse prognosis than those in the T3-4aN1c group, although both were classified as TNM ⅢB (P=0.022). Furthermore, there was no consistent difference in the prognosis of groups with equal numbers of TDs and lymph node metastasis.
Conclusions TDs in CRC is a potential adverse indicator. A different number of TDs may lead to a different prognosis, with TD=1, TD=2-3, and TD ≥ 4 likely representing three separate risk groups. Furthermore, the TD staging system described in the TNM 8th edition may not be very accurate.