INTRODUCTION: Accurate pathological study of colorectal cancer (CRC) specimens is of paramount importance to prognosis and indication of adjuvant therapies. Despite the minimum of 12 lymph nodes has been considered adequate to correctly establish the stage of disease, a bigger harvest of lymph nodes would increase the number of metastatic lymph nodes obtained. AIMS: To evaluate the harvest of lymph nodes from mesocolic fat before and after the introduction of routine use of a revealing solution of lymph nodes. Methods: We evaluated a total of 706 pathological reports of CRC, 582 without use of revealing solution and 124 with use of this solution. RESULTS: most of patients were females (57.6%) with mean age of 61.36 years. Sixty per cent of tumors were located distally to splenic flexure. The average of lymph nodes obtained was 16.73 and 28.97 before and after use of revealing solution, respectively (p < 0,001). Percentage of specimens with eleven or less lymph nodes (Nx) decreased significantly after use of revealing solution (32.7 to 3.2%; p < 0,0001). In opposite, there was a significative increase in number of cases sorted as pN0, pN1, pN2 e pN3 after use of revealing solution. CONCLUSION: The use of revealing solution of lymph nodes causes great impact in the pathological study of CRC and its routine use is strongly recommended in the surgical pathology services.
Colorectal cancer; staging; pathology; lymph nodes
