Study: Rectal Cancer Spread to Veins Ups Odds of Spread to Lymph Nodes

The spread of early rectal cancer to the veins greatly increases the odds that the cancer has also spread to the patient's lymph nodes, according to researchers reporting in the European Journal of Surgical Oncology.

In a study of 59 patients with early rectal cancer, the researchers said they found venous invasion (cancer spread to the veins) in 60 percent of patients who also had seen the cancer spread to the lymph nodes, compared to only 7 percent of patients where the lymph nodes were cancer free.

"The odds ratio of lymph node metastasis increased 18-fold for a patient who had venous invasion compared with a patient who did not," the researchers said.

They suggested that the discovery that early rectal cancer had spread to the veins " may provide valuable information to determine which patients would benefit from radical surgery, or adjuvant radiation therapy after sphincter-sparing surgery."

Other sources: European Journal of Surgical Oncology