Key clinical point: Tumor deposits (TDs) are associated with a worse prognosis, thereby indicating that the addition of number of TDs to lymph node metastases count could improve prognostication accuracy in stage III colon cancer.
Major finding: The presence of TD was associated with poorer disease-free survival (DFS; hazard ratio [HR], 1.63; P < .0001) and overall survival (OS; HR, 1.59; P = .0004). Combining TD and number of lymph node metastases restaged 7.1% of pN1 patients as pN2 who had worse rates of 3-year DFS (80.5% vs 65.4%; P = .0003) and 5-year OS (87.9% vs 69.1%; P = .0001) vs those who remained classified as pN1.
Study details: Findings are from a post hoc analysis of CALGB/SWOG 80702 phase 3 trial involving 2,028 patients with stage III colon cancers. Overall, 74% of patients had TD-positive tumors.
Disclosures: This work was supported by the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health and in part by funds from Pfizer. R Cohen declared receiving honoraria and research grants from various sources.
Source: Cohen R et al. Ann Oncol. 2021 Jul 19. doi: 10.1016/j.annonc.2021.07.009 .