Prognostic impact of lymphovascular invasion in lymph node-negative superficial esophageal squamous cell carcinoma

Abstract

SUMMARY The relationship between lymphovascular invasion (LVI) and prognosis in patients with superficial esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (SESCC) is unclear. The aim of this study is to evaluate prognostic factors in patients with lymph node-negative SESCC. A total of 195 patients with pathologically confirmed T1a-MM, T1b, and lymph node-negative SESCC were retrospectively reviewed in this study. Overall, the disease-free survival (DFS) rate was poorer in the lymphatic invasion-positive group than in the lymphatic invasion-negative group (p = 0.002) and a multivariate analysis suggested that lymphatic invasion was the only independent prognostic factor of DFS in patients with lymph node-negative SESCC (HR = 4.075, p = 0.005). Distant organ recurrence occurred in one patient (1/52, 1.9%) in the T1b-SM2 group and in six patients (6/61, 9.7%) in the T1b-SM3 group; all of these patients had LVI. LVI-positive patients had a poorer DFS than invasion-negative patients in the T1b-SM2 and SM3 groups (p = 0.026), and a multivariate analysis suggested that LVI was the only independent prognostic factor of DFS in patients with lymph node-negative SM2 and SM3 SESCC (HR = 5.165, p = 0.031). Lymph node-positive patients had a significantly poorer DFS rate than lymph node negative and LVI positive patients among the SM2 and SM3 SESCC patients (p = 0.018). The present results suggested that LVI was an independent prognostic factor in patients with SM2 and SM3 lymph node-negative SESCC; however their prognosis was not worse than that of patients with lymph node-positive SM2 and SM3 SESCC, for whom adjuvant therapy is indicated as a standard treatment.

Contrast-Enhanced CT-Based Radiomics Analysis in Predicting Lymphovascular Invasion in Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma

“…The clinicopathological data revealed that patients with LVI had higher pN stage than patients without LVI, which was consistent with the cN stage results. Clinically, LVI may be an upgrade factor for all N stages (54), particularly in patients with negative lymph node metastases, for it is the only factor that affects the prognosis (55). In our study, the radiomics model achieved AUCs of 0.847 and 0.826 in the training and testing cohort, which were better than the AUCs of the clinical model (0.775 and 0.798, respectively).…”

The role of vascular invasion and lymphatic invasion in predicting recurrent thoracic oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma

“…Different observations have been made in the literature concerning the possible reasons. J. Oguma et al [29] hypothesized that lymphatic invasion occurs first during invasion from the muscularis mucosae to the upper layer of the submucosa, and venous invasion may occur after lymphatic invasion as the tumour invades deeper layers of the submucosa. The mechanical stress generated by proliferating tumour cells and high interstitial fluid pressure may affect intratumour vascular function [25].…”

Lymphatic Vessel Invasion in Routine Pathology Reports of Papillary Thyroid Cancer

“…In several tumor entities, LVI has been shown to correlate with LNMs and with prognoses of patients (13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18). Similar data are available for PTC (6,(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24).…”

“…Lymphatic vessel invasion (LVI) has been shown to correlate with LNM and with patients' prognoses in several tumor entities (13)(14)(15)(16). In a recent study, it was found to be the only independent prognostic factor of disease free survival (DFS) in patients with lymph node-negative superficial esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (17). Even its documented absence (L0) might play some predictive role: a multicenter retrospective analysis found that no LNMs were identified in women with low-risk cervical cancer and no LVI.…”