Abstract

The prognosis of gastrointestinal epithelial malignancies is derived from TNM staging. The nodal status has the most importance. It guides the subsequent adjuvant therapies and gives the oncologist outstanding information about the biology of disease. Recently, a growing number of publications seem to be attributing importance to a ratio of positive to resected lymph nodes as a bad prognostic factor; particularly in gastro-oesophageal carcinomas, colorectal carcinomas and also pancreatic cancer....