Reply to: EVOCAPE 2 study: Lack of prognostic significance of conventional peritoneal cytology in colorectal and gastric cancer?

摘要

We appreciate the interest that Braam et al. have paid to the results of our study EVOCAPE 2.1 They suggest that the conclusions concerning the prognostic significance of intraperitoneal free cancer cells (IPCC), especially for the development of PC in gastric cancer should be interpreted with caution. We totally agree with them. The main message of our study was that conventional cytology is probably not useful for colorectal and gastric cancers because of its low rate of positivity. It does not bring any additional information in term of recurrence risk or survival than usual prognostic factors (TNM, differentiation...). Despite a standardized procedure for cytology and a panel of 7 cytopa-thologists for interpretation, the prevalence of IPCC remained low in our study.