Lymphadenectomy in gastrointestinal cancer surgery.

Abstract

Extended lymph node dissection is an important part of the surgical treatment for cancer of the esophagus, stomach, colon and rectum. With an appropriate lymphadenectomy a more precise tumour-staging, an increase in resectability, a rise of the rate of R0-resections, further a decrease in local tumour recurrences and an improvement of prognosis can be achieved.