[The usefulness of pelvic lymphadenectomy in bladder cancer].
OBJECTIVE
[corrected] To assess the usefulness of pelvic lymphadenectomy in bladder cancer.


RESULTS
With the followings key words: "bladder cancer, lymphadenectomy, lymph node metastasis" we search in Medline/PubMed database for papers published during the last ten years. Thirty three papers fulfilling the search criteria were selected.


CONCLUSIONS
It does not exist any randomized prospective study comparing different pelvic lymphadenectomy techniques. Nodal metastasis in bladder cancer after radical cystectomy and pelvic lymphadenectomy ranged between 18% and 28%. Standard lymphadenectomy could improve tumor staging and probably survival in selected patients. It is advisable to remove, as a quality parameter, at least 10 to 14 nodes in a pelvic lymphadenectomy. Lymph node density seems to predict survival better than TNM staging system. It is advisable to perform separate lymph node dissection rather than en-bloc.
Monzó
J I
JI
Servicio de Urología, Hospital General Universitario Gregorio Marañón, Madrid. juanimonzo@hotmail.com
Herranz Amo
F
F
Cabello Benavente
R
R
Hernández Fernández
C
C
D006801:Humans; D008197:Lymph Node Excision / Q000379:methods; D001749:Urinary Bladder Neoplasms / Q000601:surgery*