Who ’s to blame for the inadequate lymph node yield?

I learned early in my surgical training that pelvic surgery is an unforgiving sport. My attending surgeon at the time, Dr Michael Porter, aptly described a proctectomy as “operating in a glass jar on something that’s the same size as the jar.” That was almost 20 years ago, and surgery for rectal cancer has certainly improved in the interim, but there is still significant variability in surgical quality and patient outcomes. One well-known and longstanding marke r of surgical quality is lymph node yield (LNY), which has conventionally been tied to the extent of surgical resection and height of vessel ligation.
Source: Surgery - Category: Surgery Authors: Tags: Invited commentary Source Type: research