BACKGROUND TNM staging plays a critical role in the evaluation and management of a range of different types of cancers. The conventional combinatorial approach to the determination of an anatomic stage relies on the identification of distinct tumor (T), node (N), and metastasis (M) classifications to generate a TNM grouping. This process is inherently inefficient due to the need for scrupulous ...

We aimed to analyze the clinical characteristics and compare the surgical outcome of pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (pNETs) using the 2 tumor-node-metastasis (TNM) systems by both the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) Staging Manual (seventh edition) and the European Neuroendocrine Tumor Society (ENETS). Moreover, we sought to validate the prognostic value of the new AJCC

PURPOSE To evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of multidetector computed tomography (MDCT) for preoperative staging of renal cell carcinoma (RCC) using the 1997 TNM (tumor, node, metastasis) classification. MATERIALS AND METHODS We conducted a retrospective review of MDCT in 57 consecutive patients with RCC performed for tumor staging before radical (n = 51) or partial nephrectomy (n = 6). The s...

Breast cancer staging, in particular N-stage changed most significantly due to the advanced technique of sentinel lymph node biopsy two decades ago. Pathologists have more thoroughly examined and scrutinized sentinel lymph node and found increased number of small volume metastases. While pathologists use the strict criteria from the Tumor Lymph Node Metastasis (TNM) Classification, studies have...

The significance and impact of the coexistence of chronic lymphocytic thyroiditis (CLT) with thyroid cancer is still debated. To verify the influence of CLT on papillary thyroid cancer (PTC), we retrospectively collected 505 PTC cases and analyzed age at diagnosis, sex, size, lymph node status, and staging. We found that CLT was present in 168 PTC (33.3%). Compared with the 337 patients without...

Epidemiological studies suggest that obesity is a risk of thyroid cancer, especially papillary thyroid cancer (PTC). However, the associations of obesity and clinic-pathological features, especially the association of body mass index (BMI) and lymph node metastasis of thyroid cancer are unclear. Seven hundred ninety-six primary patients with PTC were enrolled in this retrospective cohort study....

PURPOSE Placenta growth factor (PlGF) is a member of the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) family. PlGF is implicated in several pathologic processes, including the growth and spread of cancer and tumor angiogenesis. The aim of this study was to evaluate the expression and the clinical implications of PlGF in colorectal cancer. METHODS In order to ascertain the clinical significance o...

Early studies had shown that metastatic lymph node (LN) was one of the most critical prognostic factors in gastric carcinoma (Hohenberger and Gretschel, 2003; Yokota et al, 2004; Dicken et al., 2005). Since the International Union Against Cancer tumor node metastasis (UICC TNM) classification for LN staging standard was modified in 1997, LN metastatic sites were replaced by the number of metast...

The tumor, lymph node, metastasis (TNM) classification system that has been in use worldwide since the 1980s was built on the premise that the anatomic extent of a majority of solid tumors is one of the most robust prognostic markers in cancer management. The TNM system is used by physicians and cancer registrars to categorize patients into important groups for treatment planning, clinical tria...

BACKGROUND The 7th UICC N stage may be unsuitable for remnant gastric cancer (RGC) because the original disease and previous operation usually cause abnormal lymphatic drainage. However, the prognostic significance of the current TNM staging system in RGC has not been studied. METHODS Prospective data from 153 RGC patients who underwent curative gastrectomy from Jan 1995 to Aug 2009 were revi...