s paper evaluates the computer software in patients with gastric cancer who underwent gastrectomy and lymph node metastasis.
It revealed very high negative predicitive value, i. e. 98.3% for No. 12 node, 98.5% for No. 13node, 99.5% for No. 14 node, 98.3% for No. 15 node, and 99.0% for No. 16 node, respectively.
The most improtant measure of the validity of this computer-assisted prediction is the negative predictive value, which indicates the number of patients with unpredicted lymph node metastases found on surgical exploration, I.E. The number of
patients
who would undergo inadequate lymphadenectomy if the extent of their surgery was based on computer prediction alone.
To predict depth of tumor invasion precisely, which is needed to predict lymph node metastasis accurately by this computer software, preoperative endoscopic ultrasonography or intraoperative reasessment of the depth of invasion may be helpful.
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