Research progress of pancreatic cancer with lymph node micrometastases

As one of the gastrointestinal malignancies, pancreatic cancer is well known because of high degree of malignancy, low survival rate and very poor prognosis. Lymphatic  metastasis, the most important metastasis of pancreatic cancer, has the characteristics of metastasis in an early stage and high occurrence rate. Recently, some studies have suggested that widespread micrometastasis of lymph nodes occurring in the early stage of pancreatic cancer could play an important role in influencing postoperative neoplasm recurrence. Further studies on lymph node micrometastasis of pancreatic cancer are needed to help to understand pancreatic cancer more deeply and to comprehend metastasis rule more clearly. So we can choose more reasonable surgical treatment for every patient, achieving individual treatment, so as to improve the prognosis of the pancreatic cancer patients.