A study conducted by researchers from Cedars-Sinai has found that the simple process of counting how many lymph nodes (LNs) are cancerous may be the best option to determine cancer patient’s disease outlook and mortality for 16 major cancers.
“Count the number of metastatic [cancerous] lymph nodes,” co-author Assoc Prof. Zack Zumsteg said. “We found that this simple process is much better for determining prognoses for solid tumors than all the other factors used today.”
The study found that the quantitative method of counting the number of lymph nodes that have cancer cells is the best predictor of determining the cancer stages of patients for 16 cancers, with the 16 cancers examined: lung, breast, kidney, colon, stomach, prostate, skin, thyroid, pancreas, cervix, esophagus, hepatobiliary [liver and its associate organs], head and neck, bladder, ovary, and endometrium cancer….