Stage Ⅲ should be subclassified into Stage ⅢA and ⅢB in the American Joint Committee on Cancer(8^(th) Edition) staging system for pancreatic cancer

摘要

AIM To ascertain the prognostic role of the T4 and N2 category in stage Ⅲ pancreatic cancer according to the 8 th edition of the American Joint Committee on Cancer(AJCC) classification.METHODS Patients were collected from the Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results(SEER) database(2004-2013) and were divided into three groups: T(1-3)N2, T4 N(0-1), and T4 N2. Overall survival(OS) and disease-specific survival(DSS) of patients were evaluated by the Kaplan-Meier method. RESULTS For the first time, we found a significant difference in OS and DSS between T(1-3)N2/T4 N(0-1) and T4 N2 butnot between T(1-3)N2 and T4 N(0-1). A higher grading correlated with a worse prognosis in the T(1-3)N2 and T4 N2 groups.CONCLUSION Patients with stage T4 N2 had a worse prognosis than those with stage T(1-3)N2/T4 N(0-1) in the 8 th edition AJCC staging system for pancreatic cancer. We recommend that stage Ⅲ should be subclassified into stage ⅢA [T(1-3)N2/T4 N(0-1)] and stage ⅢB(T4 N2).