ArticleBMC gastroenterology2010
Role of tumor size in the pre-operative management of rectal cancer patients.
Article in BMC gastroenterology, 2010. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed, 10 citations in OpenAlex.
- Stage and size using magnetic resonance imaging and endosonography in neoadjuvantly-treated rectal cancer.World journal of gastroenterology · 2013Trial
- Clinical characteristics and survival outcomes of rectal cancer patients across different mrT3 substages determined by rectal MRI.International journal of colorectal disease · 2025Article
- Decreased expression of dual specificity phosphatase 22 in colorectal cancer and its potential prognostic relevance for stage IV CRC patients.Tumour biology : the journal of the International Society for Oncodevelopmental Biology and Medicine · 2015Article
- Patterns of lymph node metastasis are different in colon and rectal carcinomas.World journal of gastroenterology · 2010Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundClinical management of rectal cancer patients relies on pre-operative staging. Studies however continue to report moderate degrees of over/understaging as well as inter-observer variability. The aim of this study was to determine the sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of tumor size for predicting T and N stages in pre-operatively untreated rectal cancers.
methodsWe examined a test cohort of 418 well-documented patients with pre-operatively untreated rectal cancer admitted to the University Hospital of Basel between 1987 and 1996. Classification and regression tree (CART) and logistic regression analysis were carried out to determine the ability of tumor size to discriminate between early (pT1-2) and late (pT3-4) T stages and between node-negative (pN0) and node-positive (pN1-2) patients. Results were validated by an external patient cohort (n = 28).
resultsA tumor diameter threshold of 34 mm was identified from the test cohort resulting in a sensitivity and specificity for late T stage of 76.3%, and 67.4%, respectively and an odds ratio (OR) of 6.67 (95%CI:3.4-12.9). At a threshold value of 29 mm, sensitivity and specificity for node-positive disease were 94% and 15.5%, respectively with an OR of 3.02 (95%CI:1.5-6.1). Applying these threshold values to the validation cohort, sensitivity and specificity for T stage were 73.7% and 77.8% and for N stage 50% and 75%, respectively.
conclusionsTumor size at a threshold value of 34 mm is a reproducible predictive factor for late T stage in rectal cancers. Tumor size may help to complement clinical staging and further optimize the pre-operative management of patients with rectal cancer.
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