Retrograde Lymphatic Spread of Esophageal Cancer: A Case Report

The concept of the retrograde lymphatic spread of cancer cells appears to account for a subset of the essential mechanisms of cancer metastasis in various organs. However, no adequate data currently exist to illustrate the pathology of the retrograde lymphatic metastasis of cancer cells in human bodies. To shed light on this phenomenon, we report a case of a 63-year-old Japanese man who underwent an esophagectomy and lymph node dissection for early-stage esophageal cancer. The patient's clinical information was evaluated by board-certified surgeons and internists. Surgically excised materials were histopathologically evaluated by attending pathologists. Postoperative pathological examination revealed that the patient's tumor was a well-differentiated squamous cell carcinoma with negative surgical margins (T1N0M0, stage I). Apart from the primary lesion, a single lymphatic vessel invasion was found between the lamina propria and lamina muscularis of the esophagus where intralymphatic cancer cells had spread against the direction of backflow prevention valves and skipped beyond these valves without destroying them. The present case demonstrated that the retrograde lymphatic spread of cancer cells can occur in valve-equipped lymphatic vessels. Our study may not only provide a scientific basis for the concept of retrograde lymphatic metastasis but also explain a portion of the complexities associated with the lymphogenous metastasis of esophageal cancer.