Lymphangiogenesis in patients undergoing pulmonary metastasectomy from metastatic colorectal carcinoma with negative thoracic lymph node staging

Zielsetzung: Pulmonary metastasectomy is an important surgical approach in various metastatic primary tumors. Besides other clinical prognostic factors in patients with pulmonary metastases (PM) of primary colorectal cancer (CRC), positive intrathoracic lymph nodes are thought to be associated with worse clinical outcome in these patients. Therefore, enhanced lymphangiogenesis might pose a crucial step in the disease progression of these patients, even without clinically verified lymph node metastases. We aimed to describe lymphangiogenesis by immunohistochemistry in lymph node negative patients undergoing pulmo…