Tumor necrosis in patients with TNM stage IV colorectal cancer without residual disease (R0 Status) is associated with a poor prognosis.

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  • 1 March 2013
    • journal article
Abstract
To examine the usefulness of the histopathological finding of tumor necrosis for stratifying TNM stage IV colorectal cancer in R0 status. We enrolled 98 patients with stage IV colorectal cancer, without residual disease after resection. The extent of necrosis was assessed using published thresholds, the extent was graded as "absent", "moderate" (<30% of tumor area), or "severe" (≥30%) in each section. In multivariate analysis, the only significant difference in the disease-free survival rate was related to tumor necrosis (p=0.01) and the significant differences in the overall survival rates were related to the maximum tumor size and the degree of tumor necrosis (p=0.02 and p=0.001, respectively). Tumor necrosis is associated with a poor prognosis in colorectal cancer and may allow the stratification of TNM stage IV patients without residual disease after surgery.