Analysis of the factors affecting lymph node metastasis and the prognosis of rectal neuroendocrine tumors

Objective: To analyze the factors affecting lymph node metastasis and the prognosis of rectal neuroendocrine tumors after surgical treatment. Methods: A retrospective analysis was conducted using the clinical data from 156 cases of rectal neuroendocrine tumors during the period of January 1999 to December 2013. The Kaplan-Meier method was used to calculate the survival time, Cox regression analysis was performed for statistical analysis of clinicopathological factors that may be associated with lymph node metastasis and prognosis, and correlation analysis was carried out using binary logistic regression. Results: The overall 5-year survival rate of the entire group was 95.7%. Multivariate analysis showed that the depth of invasion was an independent prognostic factor (P < 0.001). The incidence of lymph node metastasis was 7.7% (12/156), and logistic regression analysis showed that lymph node metastasis was related to the depth of invasion (P = 0.003) and tumor diameter (P = 0.006). Conclusion: The surgical approach of rectal neuroendocrine tumors should be selected based on a comprehensive consideration of factors such as tumor size, depth of invasion and lymph node metastasis.