The development of tumor cells inside the lymphatics or blood vessels is known as lymphovascular invasion (LVI). The correlation between LVI, lymph node metastasis (LNM), and the diagnosis of superficial esophageal carcinoma (SEC) remains unclear. We searched Embase, PubMed, Web of Science, and Cochrane Library databases for prospective articles to better understand the relationship between LVI, LNM, and SEC diagnosis. We included 23 articles containing data for 4749 patients (range: 54–598) in our meta-analysis. The hazard ratio between LVI and overall survival (OS) was 1.85 with 95% confidence interval (CI) (1.10–3.11, P = 0.02). LNM rate was higher in SEC patients with LVI than SEC patients without LVI (univariate: OR = 4.94, 95% CI: 3.74–6.53, P < 0.0001; multivariate: OR = 5.72, 95%CI: 4.38–7.4, P < 0.0001). No obvious publication was found. The results indicate that LVI plays a dominant role in the prognosis of LNM in SEC and in the prognostic prediction for SEC.

中文翻译：

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浅表食管癌淋巴管浸润与淋巴结转移及预后的关系：系统评价与荟萃分析

淋巴管或血管内部肿瘤细胞的发育被称为淋巴管浸润（LVI）。LVI，淋巴结转移（LNM）与浅表食管癌（SEC）的诊断之间的相关性尚不清楚。我们在Embase，PubMed，Web of Science和Cochrane图书馆数据库中搜索了预期的文章，以更好地了解LVI，LNM和SEC诊断之间的关系。我们的荟萃分析纳入了23篇文章，其中包含4749例患者的数据（范围：54–598）。LVI与总生存（OS）之间的危险比为1.85，置信区间（CI）为95％（1.10–3.11，P = 0.02）。患有LVI的SEC患者的LNM发生率高于没有LVI的SEC患者（单变量：OR = 4.94，95％CI：3.74-6.53，P <0.0001；多变量：OR = 5.72，95％CI：4.38-7.4，P <0.0001 ）。找不到明显的出版物。结果表明，LVI在SEC的LNM预后和SEC的预后预测中起主导作用。