Zorgvuldige stagering van darmkanker wel zinvol

According to a recent publication, an increase in the number of lymph nodes evaluated by pathologists in colon cancer specimens has not resulted in better staging. Over the years, more lymph nodes have been evaluated; however, not more patients were classified as being node-negative. For this reason, the authors argue that the number of lymph nodes evaluated is not a good quality indicator. We disagree. In our opinion, beter staging would lead to better survival in node-negative patients, which was indeed described by Parsons et al. The relatively low disease-staging score in patients with colon cancer in more recent years could be explained by an increase in screening programmes. Dutch data support this explanation.

Conflict of interest: none declared. Financial support: none declared.